The house I lived in in Amman Jordan had marginal wiring, too. The frig would cause all of the lights to dim as would the stove or dryer. At the time, I used a servo controlled variac on my pc, and it would be running for a significant amount of time as the voltage rose and dropped. Lucky for me, the pc had a pretty wide input range on its ps. UPS devices were not readily available at that time, or I would have used one of those. The connections at the pole were often just twisted wires...and they rarely were insulated making it very dangerous to even think about getting near. At night, it was an interesting light show, and things really went bonkers when it rained (infrequently, luckily).
The codes and inspections we gripe about here mean our infrastructure is much safer, and things work as designed. Some day, the rest of the world will figure that out; some have, and might be considered stricter than ours.