Alo...?

We have all but spent our meagre savings now, and are casting about for some form of earnings (as well as the guesthouse). This is proving tougher than we thought. I placed an ad (in English) explicitly for "motivated advanced students" and have had at least 20 responses. On the face of it, this is good. Unfortunately they’ve been from complete set of idiots whose knowledge of English is about as advanced as my arse, so most of the conversations went something along the lines of this:

ME: "Hello?"

THEM: "Alo?"

ME: "You wanted to know about English lessons?"

THEM: "Alo?"

ME: "Queria informacaoes sobre as aulas de ingles?"

THEM: "Ah. Sim."

ME: "OK. So can we speak in Emglish?"

THEM: "Alo..?"

Never mind, we’ll think of something. Where did I put that plan 'B'…?