Try to see if maybe one of your friends may have Paint Shop Pro for you. I am not sure how expensive it would be if you bought it, but I do think it is more user friendly.
Photoshop is the programme that is used by professionals. That means you can do pretty much anything with it, but it is not very user-friendly for a beginner. Photoshop light is just a version of Photoshop with only a small part of the functionality. Paint Shop Pro is more for the hobbyist user and has more tutorials and help function built in. I am not sure if that has any light versions though.
You can also try CorelDraw or Fireworks, but I have no recent experience with that.