Trouble Creating RiseUp/Tor account & connection

[iago1598 at riseup.net]

I am new to all of this anonymity stuff and am trying to find a few
friends to help. I'd like to use Pidgin to facilitate this. However, I
seem to be running into trouble either creating the account or connecting
to the service.

I have followed the instructions given here:
https://help.riseup.net/en/pidgin

with the only difference being that I used my riseup account name and
password on the Proxy tab rather than the foo and hidden password. I get a
window that says unable to connect. Have I entered something wrong or is
this something that happens a lot? Or is there something more to this that
I'm not getting?

I'm running Windows 7 - I know, I know, but one has to start somewhere and
this is a HUGE learning curve, especially for me. Right now I'm just
trying to find someone who uses email encryption so that I can give it a
try. I have set up a key, but I don't know anyone who uses this stuff that
I can experiment with.

Hope someone out there has some time and would like to play with a new
friend.

Iago