You also have the fact that a lot of the early electricity research was tied to the power outputs of steam engines. As an experimental set up, you have something you can turn on and off. I imagine it'd be hard to do the basic research with an inconsistent kind of power.
Also, Swahilli is a trade language, not an ethnicity (I think).
Heat storage is simpler than electric storage. With a thermal storage system (pressured steam or molten salt could work) in place, the inconsistency won't be as bad as you think. Especially somewhere in the tropics.
You'll need a tremendous over-capacity since storing energy as heat ensures that most of it won't be available as work, if the powersource itself is intermittent.... Now you might have an idea why solar power is still only a fraction of what it theoretically could be, because it isn't' as easy as people think.