You're not the only one who's not convinced!
As long as your friend knows the e-mail addresses of the people she wants to contact (rather than relying on an address book accessed through her webmail service), it would be simplest if she just set up another e-mail account and mailed her folks to tell them her temporary address.
She can get a free e-mail address (which can be used either via webmail or with a program like Outlook Express) from Gawab:
http://www.gawab.com/webfront/main.php
Chris