Sad ol' Song

Originally published on my blog-diary (diary-blog?), I will not go quietly.

Amazingly — or is it predictably? — I can’t pay my hostel bill.

I need to pay for 8 days tomorrow, I was told by the owner, a young Rosarino who also lives here in what is basically his family home. He told me he was born here.

I told him I’m not sure I can pay. He said, well, you’re late, let me know.

(We communicate in English — Spanglish really — for some reason.)

I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow when I tell him I can’t pay and that I don’t know when I can.

(I’m noticing that I’ve completely forgotten about eating. You know, that thing that most people need to do every day. I haven’t eaten much the last few days. I’ve eaten all my own food and have been scavenging stuff left by old guests.)

I’ve been working all day every day for several days trying to drum up business. I contacted old clients. I contacted old leads. I sent out an e-mail to all my MailChimp lists offering a landing page/small site for $200. 1500 e-mails yielded exactly one lead.

She’s an old client, an acupuncturist, who elected not to renew her support contract a couple years ago because she was taking time off to have a baby. But all hell has broken loose on her site, my design, since there’s no one looking after it. Her theme is 11 versions out of date. Yup, that could be it. She contacted me to see what I could do and for how much.

It was a very confusing series of e-mails with her. It was clear that she wasn’t quite sure what she wanted. She didn’t say it but I could tell that money was an issue. I just don’t know how much more cheap I can offer professional services. Really. I don’t understand why Americans expect technical and design help for less than the pay of someone working at McDonald’s.

Anyway, she says she needs a few days to figure things out.

Update: Whoops! I just checked the domain and she’s moved her site over to Wix, a free page building service. She told me she just renewed hosting with GoDaddy, too, a few days ago. So she’s willing to pay GoDaddy $160 for a service she’s not going to use rather than hire me to do professional, custom work for her for only $40 more.

I will never understand people. Never.

That was the only lead I had. She didn’t tell me, of course. She could have but basic courtesy is just not part of the online social landscape anymore, if it ever was.

So I can’t even truthfully tell the hostel owner that I will probably have money coming in. I have nothing. No prospects.

I put up flyers in three universities here offering cheap private English lessons. Nothing. School isn’t in session officially for the year so that might have something to do with it.

With much fear and trepidation, I went to an English-language school here and sat down for a few minutes for a quick walk-in interview. They haven’t contacted me. Not having a phone really makes people look at you funny. They don’t trust you.

And absolutely no one is accepting my offer of volunteering via Worldpackers or HelpX. Well, they are, but just not in Argentina.

I need help. Immediately. Preferably via Western Union.

I hope someone can help. I would rather build a website for you but I’ll take anything at this point.

Banner photo is where I used to sleep rough in Prague. I've been homeless before.