A weekend of mea'ai...

In the Samoan language, the word for food is mea’ai. This past weekend, I’m sure I gained about 10 pounds due to the limitless amount of mea’ai that I have consumed (and I’m still going…it’s only Sunday morning!)

On Friday afternoon, my roommate Abby and I left school and hurried home to change out of our teacher clothes and grab our wallets – we were headed to the grocery store! This had been the one thing that we had both looked forward to all week long. The small stores by our house are only good for “I need this right now” purchases, and we were aching for some fresh produce and other necessities to fill up our fridge.  Getting to the stores we wanted to visit is a long process when you don’t have a car on island.  We had to take two buses both ways and it was almost 4:00 by the time we left. Buses stop running at 6:00, which meant that we had two hours to take two buses, visit two stores, and take two buses home.  We were about to try our hand at speed shopping.

Our first stop was at Cost-U-Less (not an ideal store to visit when you’re on a tiny budget), but we splurged on some pepperjack cheese, a 10 pack of Starkist tuna, and I got some more coffee. Total shopping time: 10 minutes.

Stop number two was K.S. Mart. Apparently this was the place for all American Samoans to be at that time. I was instantly stressed the minute we walked through the door. We only had about 20-30 minutes to shop, and that alone was not enough for me to spend my time drifting through all the aisles. There were people everywhere and I kept bumping carts with Samoans. I left with some goodies though: tortillas, baby carrots (a $1.50 steal!), brown rice, black beans, oranges, apples, kiwi’s, peanut butter, ingredients for eggplant lasagna – thanks Terrie! (but then I forgot to get the eggplant…oops), cheap toilet paper, paper towels, soap to keep in my drawer at school (they don’t have soap or tp in bathrooms at Leone HS – ew!) and a loaf of fresh baked bread. I was a happy camper. Piling onto two buses was a little difficult with two big bags of food, but I managed to get home in one piece and I think only one kiwi got squished. Whew!

By the time we got home, Abby and I were starving…and that’s when the mea’ai eating started. I cut some fresh bread and ate it with my pepperjack cheese….and then I fixed myself some buttered noodles with tuna and frozen veggies.  Immediately after, Abby and I decided to bake a cake, so we did, and ate quite a lot of it…but we still weren’t done. Later on in the night, we ended up at a “palagi party” (aka a bunch of white people hanging out at a house) where the WTers gorged ourselves on free food (we’re starving volunteers here, people!).  It was someone’s going away party and there was cake, so I of course had more cake. I left the palagi party with sleepy eyes and a full belly.

Saturday ended up being one of the most relaxing and enjoyable days that I’ve had on island. FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) has a branch here because they are still helping with the development and building of houses that got destroyed by the tsunami that struck AmSam in 2009 (I think I’ve failed to mention that on this blog…oops. I’ll save that for another post.) Anyways, some FEMA workers were having a get together for some of their workers and for the WTers. The party started at 1:00 and Abby and I had time to kill, so we took one bus, and then walked the rest of the way. Total walking time: 1 hour and 3 minutes. By the time we reached the house, we were so sweaty, dirty, and exhausted. Thank goodness this house had a pool! The rest of the day was spent swimming (in our swimsuits!! – no Samoan’s around!), sipping pina coladas and margaritas, and devouring delicious, fresh food. We had fruit salad with papaya, oranges, apples, and strawberries to start off the snacking. Then we had cheeseburgers, homemade potato salad, and a romaine salad with veggies for lunch. Snack time came around and we had pizza. Later I ate a second lunch for dinner and then the host brought out a massive plate of pasta with fresh tomato, mushrooms, capers, and more. I was in mea’ai heaven for all 7 hours that I was there. It was such a beautiful, sunny day, and there is nothing to complain about when you’ve got great food, friendship, and beautiful scenery surrounding you.

The pool had a BRIDGE!

Did I mention that the house was basically a mansion? In AmSam? Pretty rare...

Heidi, Melinda, and I enjoying the water - that's a passionfruit plant behind us!

It was delicious.

Today is Sunday. Already I’ve eaten an orange, 2 slices of peanut butter toast, a piece of cake, and umu food (fish in coconut milk, breadfruit – my favorite!, taro with chicken in coconut milk, and coconut milk bread). It’s not even noon yet.

Life is good in AmSam. I can’t wait to see what this week brings in school, food, and fun! Have a great week as well – I am missing you all and I hope that the weather is cooling down for you. Malo!

Miss Quinn! Miss Quinn!

What a week this has been. Am I really a high school teacher? I wake up thinking that every day. It has only been four days and my year at Leone High School is already full of wild, hilarious, frustrating, and interesting memories.

Let’s go back to day one. This past Monday, I was up at 5:30 a.m. and ready to go. I had no idea what to expect about my first day as a teacher.  I was excited to meet my students, but I was also nervous because I knew that everything was riding on all my first classes. Throughout the WT orientation, we were warned about the behavior of Samoan students and how classroom management was the key to having a successful year.  In AmSam, students can be extremely cheeky, a word that they use to mean everything from being flirty to being rude. I’ll be honest and say that this scared me. I’m not a confrontational person but if my students were going to be cheeky, I would have to deal with them. Getting into that mindset was hard when I had not yet experienced a Samoan classroom.

My first day was rough. The kids were excited to see their friends, but not quite ready to get back into the “I have to sit here and be quiet” mindset.  Trying to simply get them to stop making noise was the biggest chore of all. If I haven’t said this already, Samoans are LOUD, and they all have the exact same laugh (all the WTers think they sound like hyenas). I don’t have a very loud voice, but in order for them to hear me, I pretty much yelled all day. Most of my students were friendly and nice, but then I have the few in each class who try and push my buttons constantly. During my prep period, I had to “babysit” 35+ seniors from 2 other English classes (their teachers are off island – apparently it’s okay to miss the first week of school here?) and it was 100% awful. They were annoying, rude, disrespectful, and embarrassing to be around. One student asked (in front of the entire class) if he could sleep with me. Others refused to listen to me when I spoke. What a damper on my already stressful day! By the time I got home, I was mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted in every way possible, and my voice was pretty much gone. Although my day had been hard, I kept my chin up and hoped that the next day would be better.

My second day was better and so was my third. I started to figure out who my sweethearts are, who my flirts are, and who my “AARRGGH YOU MAKE ME SO MAD” kids are. I’m sure every single teacher has them. I also found out that I’d be babysitting the senior classes the entire week during my prep period…hooray…

Day four was both enjoyable and frustrating. We talked about the word RESPECT today. I had the desks in groups of three and within their groups, the students had to come up with their own definitions of respect. Respect, love, and family are what make up the Samoan culture. They live around these three things, so I knew that having a lesson on respect would hopefully mean something to them.  For 4 out of my 5 classes, they all seemed to like and understand why I was having them write about being respectful.  The 5^th class was rowdy, obnoxious, and rude. They were my last class of the day and would not be quiet. After I repeatedly shushed them and asked them to be quiet, I gave up. I then had them write about respecting me as their teacher and my classroom for the last 15 minutes of class, and then busted out my teacher face (thanks Mom!) and knocked some sense into them. I told them that how they were treating me was unacceptable and that if they wanted, I could make this the most boring class ever.  I said that I was not going to put up with that kind of behavior for the rest of the year, and that I was disappointed that after an entire class of learning and discussing the concept of “respect,” that they could not even give me the respect I deserved. After that, they were quiet. We’ll see how they are tomorrow…

All in all, I’m still really happy to be here. I haven’t gotten upset to the point that I want to breakdown and cry, but I know that those times will probably happen, and that’s ok because I’ll get through it. Teaching these kids is going to be an adventure, and I am so so so anxious to actually start teaching and quit entertaining. By the end of next week, I should hopefull have all my students and we can finally start an exciting year of American Literature.

To end this post, I’ll leave you with a first day of school picture and some fun facts about my classes and students:

This is my WT puletasi (poo-leh-tah-see), the traditional formal wear for a woman. I had the top made and WT gave us the fabric for the skirt. I've been wearing puletasi's and lavalavas (the skirt) to school all week and have been receiving compliments from both students and co-workers. Conservative dress at its finest!

·         As of right now, my largest class has 19 students and my smallest has 12.

·         All the students at Leone HS now know who I am. I am constantly hearing “Hi Miss Quinn!”

·         The bell schedule has been different every single day.  Sometimes it rings ten minutes late. School is supposed to start at 8:30…and it usually doesn’t start until 8:40. Sometimes class gets out at 3…or 3:05. We’re on “island time” here in AmSam – things will happen when they happen.

·         I am SO SO SO SO SO thankful that I don’t have to teach the seniors. I think I would come home crying every day.

·         Most families here are farmers and have plantations. I’ve been making the farm connection with them but no one has heard of soybeans or alfalfa. Probably just like you have never heard of breadfruit or taro!

·         On the first day, we played the “I’m going to a BBQ” game (it’s a good way to practice and learn names by coming up with a food that starts with the same letter as your first name)… “My name is Quinn and I’m bringing Quail to the BBQ”…I know, I know…who eats quail? But Q is such a hard food letter! Either way, Samoans have no idea what a quail is. I told them it’s a cousin of the turkey with long feathers…haha. Someone also used “asparagus” even though they had no idea what it was. Had to explain that veggie too…which made me hungry for some!

·         I’m one of the advisors for the junior class and in our first class meeting today, my lovely co-workers decided to introduce me to the class (which at this point is around 150 rowdy, rambunctious students) and tell them that 1) I’m a WTer and 2) I’m single but unavailable. OHHHMYYYGGOOOSSHH. The room went WILD. People were yelling and laughing and clapping. They were all so confused. “How can she be single but not available???”  I’m not much of a blusher but I’m sure I was bright red. Now I’ve got kids who aren’t my students calling me their girl and their girlfriend. UGH. Samoans LOVE to poke fun at people’s relationship statuses. Only in AmSam…

·         If you know me well enough, you should know by now that I LOVE names. When I was younger (and I suppose I do it even now…) I would sit around and think of new names. I’m fascinated by people who have different and creative names. AmSam was the perfect place to come for those. These are a few of my favorite names: Ioane (still not quite sure how to pronounce it – it means John in English), Iosefa (Yo-sef-ah: means Joseph), Tumema (Too-mem-a),Tui (Too-ee), Oeti (Oh-et-ee), Si'i (See-ee)…the list could go on and on. Then I’ve got old school names like Fred, Ronaldo, Judy, and Rose. The “newest” name that I have is Reagan (which I can only assume that she was named after Ronald Reagan). I’ve also got names like Niue (which is the name of an island in the South Pacific), Niu (means coconut!), Fa’afetai (means thank you), Keke (means cake… “Yes Miss, my name means cake”) Lucky, Miracle, Maze, Nash, Dynamite, and Kus (Cuss). Two of my boys prefer to be called Clay Matthews aka the football player who played/plays? for the Packers. Last but not least, I have a student whos first name is 64 letters long. 64!!!!!!! I can’t not type it for you, so here it is: Palemenepuleilemalotutoatasiasamoaisisifoiletapuaigaatumuamapule. That is his first name. What does he want me to call him? Mene. LOVE IT!

Welp, that’s about all I can give you for now…I’ve got to finish my syllabus and write some lesson plans. Fa’afetai for keeping up with my blog – I am loving the comments! Stay tuned for more stories!

A picturesque update

Talofa lava! It's a torrential rainy afternoon here in Pua Pua. The plan was to go snorkeling but you can't really snorkel when it's raining and chilly..darn! I was up and out the door by 7:30 this morning to go to school. It takes about 15-20 minutes to walk there and thankfully I have yet to be harassed by dogs on my way. School starts on Monday so I wanted to finish up my classroom decorations and last minute cleaning.

Here in AmSam, teachers clean their classrooms themselves...we sweep our floors, we wash our windows, and we clean the desks and chairs. When I first walked into my classroom last Tuesday, it looked like this:

It may not look that messy, but there was an insanely thick layer of dirt and dust on the floor, random papers were all over the room, and well, it was just gross.

I went to town on it. Hardcore. By the end of my first day of cleaning, I had it looking like this:

By the end of this morning, I was quite happy with how it turned out:

I have to add my classroom rules on Monday morning but I've already got my agenda ready!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T!

Overall, I think my classroom turned out great! I still have a massive bulletin board in the back of my room to decorate, but I'm going to save that until I start teaching an actual unit. My desk is a little rusty, but I'm glad I have it. There are two closets in my classroom but I won't ever use them - they are swarming with termites and all of the shelves are falling apart. I attempted to clean them but almost puked. EWW. I won't show you a picture because I'm sure it would gross you out just as much.

School starts on Monday! As of a few days ago, only 400 kids out of the usual 800-900 were registered for school...I don't know what that means, but I've been warned that I shouldn't start my actual lessons until the 2nd or 3rd week of school. I guess that means we'll be doing a lot of icebreakers and playing a lot of games.

In other news, check out my dinner and today's lunch:

So many people told me that you would never be able to find fresh veggies or cheese on this island. I proved them WAY WRONG! I made a salad with romaine lettuce, fresh tomato, red pepper, and canned black beans, as well as a tuna and cheese melt. I was in food heaven. The bonus to all this? Everything was cheap. This made me a very happy Quinn.

This is one of the skirts I had made. Total cost: $8. I'm standing at my high school - one of the classroom buildings is behind me - you also might notice that it is raining!

My friend Courtney took this. Melinda, Heidi, and I were hitching a ride in Nu'uuli!

This is the WT dog, Brownie, who lives at our house. A few years ago, some WTers adopted her. She's a total sweetheart and gets so excited when we come home.

P.S. I will post pictures of Sliding Rock and our house next...

P.P.S. A lot of you are asking what the irony was in the picture from my last post...if you look closely,  you will see that a tree is growing out of a coconut. I thought it was funny...

Malo!

Living the American Samoa dream

A lot has happened since I last wrote and that was only 5 days ago. Why not update you with bullet points?

·         I gave 3 solo lessons to groups of Samoan high school students, all of which went really well! The WT crew had 20 minutes for each lesson which was pretty tight to work with, but it gave us time to try out different activities. My overall topic was imagery and of the three, the students seemed to love the auditory lesson the most. I had them listen to a 2 minute Daft Punk song from the Tron soundtrack and they had to either draw or write what they thought was happening in the song. I had them share their ideas and almost all of them thought the song had to do with war, arcade games, and flashing bright lights…I haven’t seen Tron, but I know that the movie encompasses all three of those things. I was amazed and so were the students when I told them that the song was from a movie about arcade games.

·         WT ended our orientation with a bang at Sadies by the Sea, a nice little restaurant on the water. There’s nothing better than sipping pineapple juice and feeling the ocean breeze on your face. Following a “meh” breakfast, my friends and I stopped by the gas station that supposedly sells the best ice cream on island. Cookies and Cream ice cream before 11am? Works for me!

There are many perks when you live on a tropical island...especially the views.

Not a bad place to have breakfast!

·         Saturday was move out day! After a deep clean of Nu’uuli Vo-Tech High School, the Leone teachers and 3 of the teachers that will be moving to the outer islands boarded a school bus with all our suitcases and headed to our new home. Our house is wonderful! It looked so tiny from the outside, but it’s actually quite big. Pros of the house: we have an oven, a coffee pot, a toaster, a microwave, and a full size fridge/freezer, all of which are luxuries that I didn’t expect. My room is the biggest bedroom and I have a full size bed! Our house has two bathrooms, a cute little living room/dining room, and plenty of space to host guests…please come visit! Cons: I’ve killed plenty of spiders but luckily they were all small. Pictures to come soon…

·         School starts in ONE WEEK! AHH! I met my principal and the vice principals today – they are all extremely fun and are excited to have WTers at Leone. I saw my classroom (my very own classroom!) from afar. I am so anxious to get in there to clean and decorate! I will be teaching 5 American Literature classes, all for juniors. 3 are proficient level (their version of advanced) and 2 are mainstream. I’ll only have prep for one class, and I’ll just tweak the activities a bit for the mainstream classes. Hurray!

·         Adventures: There are lots of places to explore in Leone, one of which is Sliding Rock. My friend Cat and I went there this afternoon and had fun crawling on big rocks, peering into crystal clear tide pools, watching crabs climb around, and soaking up the most amazing view of the Pacific Ocean. I'll make sure to post pics in the next post.

This is going to be one amazing year and I am thrilled that I can spend so much time outside!

AmSam has its own CostCo. It's called Cost-U-Less but everyone calls it Cost-U-More. I was overwhelmed when I walked in...too much stuff!

Can you see the irony in this picture? 

 These are two of my WT friends: Courtney on the left and Heidi in the middle 

I may not be Quinn Fabray, but I am Quinn the extreme snorkeler!

Have I really been living in American Samoa for 2.5 weeks? Sometimes it feels like I’ve been here 2 hours and other days I feel as if I’ve lived here for many months. Our orientation site in Nu’uuli is very close to the airport and for the past two Monday nights, I’ve yelled out to my room of girls, “That was us a week ago! That was us two weeks ago!” when we hear the airplane landing. Have I told you about Flight Night yet? Flight Night is HUGE here. Flights from the “mainland,” aka Hawaii, fly in on Monday and Thursday nights at 9:30, and then fly back to Hawaii at 11:30. Flight Night is a real thing. Hundreds of people go to the airport to say goodbye to loved ones, to welcome new people to the island, and to just hang out. There’s even a TV SHOW about all the airport fun. Don’t believe me? Check out this website: Flight Night in AmSam, which will take you to episodes and videos from Flight Night. Only in AmSam…

How many of you blog readers out there watch Glee? I love, love, LOVE Glee and I’m so bummed that I’ll miss out on watching the next season with my Mom. If you do watch the show, you obviously know who Quinn Fabray is. If you don’t, here’s a picture of her:

We look nothing alike and we act completely different, yet Samoan high school girls seem to think that I’m her. I kid you not. Both times that I’ve met a group of high school students and told them my name, the girls always screech, “Like Quinn from GLEE? QUINN FABRAY? Are you a cheerleader?!!!” Back in the day, people knew my name from Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. Now they associate me with a blonde cheerleader with a huge ego. I can only laugh and tell the girls that 1) I’m not Quinn from Glee, 2) My name was Quinn first, and 3) I'm a runner and no, I won’t become a cheerleader.

Subject change. On Monday, the WT group got a personal tour of Fagatele Bay by some people from NOAA who work on the island. The bay (pronounced Fahng-ah-tell-ay) is one of the top 5 protected marine sanctuaries throughout the USA and its territories. It was absolutely gorgeous and completely hidden from civilization. You have to trek through a jungle to even get to the beach. We went on the first rainy day since I’ve been here which meant that the water was pretty rough and the sun only popped out occasionally. What’s this a perfect day for? EXTREME SNORKELING!

Hikin' through the jungle

The sun popped out right when we got there...and then it quickly disappeared and brought forth rain which brought forth extreme waves.

I visited Forest City Scuba in Rockford, IL, before I left to get some fancy equipment for snorkeling. I had read that the marine life in AmSam was stunning and that it is the perfect place to snorkel. And that it was. Being a first-time snorkeler (besides that one time in Jan’s pool – thanks Jan!), I had absolutely no idea what to do, so I just went for it. I flopped into the water and dog paddled around until I realized I couldn’t breathe…duh Quinn, you have a snorkel for a reason. After I figured out the breathing, I really focused my eyes on what was below the water. My first dip under made me squeal, which somehow made my mask come off and my snorkel filled with water, so I came up sputtering and spitting. Salt water is GROSS. Long story short, I extreme snorkeled into the middle of the bay. We aren’t supposed to tell our parents that we snorkeled in 10-15 foot wave swells, but hey, I’m still here so why not say it! I think I swallowed half of the Pacific Ocean, but I also got to see some amazing, beautiful marine life. My friends and I came upon a school of 300-500 fish, I saw coral, and even tried my hand at underwater photography. Snorkeling was an incredible adventure, but I will say that I’m excited to “normal snorkel” where I’m not getting pulled by extreme currents and waves, but instead get to float around without gallons of ocean water spilling into my fresh oxygen.

Snorkeling is clearly an attractive look for me.

 Here fishy, fishy, fishy. This is my favorite shot of the day.

Most of my shots were blurry- I was more focused on staying alive. I promise to get better shots next time!

Countdown: 3 days until I move into my house and 12 days until the first day of school!

Thanks for reading this random post…I hope you enjoyed my “Only in AmSam” stories! J

Hiking to the top of American Samoa

Yesterday was a good day. For the first time since I arrived on this island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I got to spend almost the entire day outside! For the past (almost) two weeks, I have spent 10+ hours sitting on my butt every single day. My brain is so tired and my butt feels like mush. I gave it some super intense exercise and I woke up sore this morning.

A small pack of WT'ers and our friends Khoa and Bo hiked the great Mt. Alava. Being in Nu'uuli, we had to travel far to get to the start of the trail in Vatia. We walked, we took two 'aiga buses, we walked some more (and by walked I mean tramped up an extremely steep road that just kept going and going and winding and winding) and we finally got picked up by some gracious Samoans that went out of their way to take us to the base of the trail. Khoa and I were lucky enough to sit in the cab of the truck and chat with "Big Mike" and Lema, who told us about their village and life in American Samoa. The generosity and friendliness of Samoans will never cease to amaze me.  As they dropped us off, they made sure to tell us to be safe on our hike, and to come visit whenever we wanted. Total travel time: 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Tramping up the super steep road, surrounded by jungle!

 Click on this picture to make it big. We started at the red arrow, followed the red line up the mountain trail, and kept going pass the yellow arrow. You'll also notice that this is a National Park Service hike. There is a National Park in American Samoa!

We took a few sips of water, tightened our backpacks, took a deep breath, and then we were off. I started sweating about a minute in. The first 30 minutes or so are spent going up, up, UP, and UP. This is not a hike for the weak - I was so happy to have my hiking shoes on, mainly for the traction. 

Khoa, Bo, Courtney, and I took the lead and charged ahead. The trail went from being intense to extreme. For the next 45-60 minutes, we had to climb stairs and ladders (complete with ropes to hold onto so you don't fall). Talk about a workout. My heart was beating so fast, and my body was literally glistening and dripping with sweat.

Our view, halfway up the mountain...not too shabby, eh?

After climbing ladder after ladder, some going up, some going down, we made it to the top. And what a relief that summit was. There was an open fale to rest in and rest we did. I was so tired, yet so exhilarated at the same time. My clothes were drenched, my legs were muddy, and my heart was happy from all the cardio!

The view of the island, harbors, and villages was breathtaking. You could see for miles and it really hit me that I'm living on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean. Fruit bats sailed around us, flowers and trees swayed in the breeze, and the peace and quiet of the summit relaxed us before our hike down.

The flowers here are so beautiful!

Hot, sweaty, and exhausted WTers!

There are hibiscus of every color!

Hiking down was a breeze, but we still had a long way to go to get back to Nu'uuli. When we finally got on a bus, we all took a huge sigh of relief and a big gulp of water. It felt good to sit and feel the cool breeze against our sweaty faces.

On our hike down, we turned around and our jaws dropped...we were all the way up there?!

We had a great day together and as we were 3 minutes from the school, my day wouldn't have been complete without my first "I almost got eaten by a dog" experience. I was leading the group and as I walked by a group of trucks, two dogs came around the corner about two feet from my achy shins. Not only did they bark, but they snarled, and bared their teeth, and basically scared the living daylights out of me. Thanks to the quick reaction of my friends, they Halu'd the heck out of those dogs. Who knows what would have happened if I would have been alone. Thanks, friends! 2 minutes later, as I was trying to get my heart pumping again, we laughed. Only in American Samoa.

After a cold, wonderful shower, I went to dinner with a few WT'ers and Khoa. We all devoured our food because hiking really makes you hungry! I had a delicious fish fajita salad and it hit the spot. I've been warned against eating chicken here - especially from restaurants. Word on the street is that it is mystery meat/aka it could be dog or something else. Ew. But back to the salad! It was incredible, and I can't wait to eat it again. The last thing to make the day even more incredible? Walking back to Nu'uuli under the bright, amazing sky of stars, and then having a McFlurry from McDonald's (haha).

Hitching to the Deluxe Cafe w/ Lauren next to me. Riding in the back of a truck at night is priceless!

I've got an address!

If you are interested in sending me mail (always appreciated!), you can send it to the following address:

Quinn Bolander
c/o WorldTeach
P.O. Box 5411
Pago Pago, American Samoa
96799

Yes, that's a zipcode! Want to know what else is great? You can send me a letter here and it will cost you the same as it would to mail it to me in Sycamore...this is a great incentive (did I use that word right?) for you to practice your letter writing skills...hint hint!

Also, if you are interested in sending a package, you can get flat rate boxes at the Post Office and fill them with as much weight as you can possibly fit for around $15. Perfect! Do not send it from FedEx because you will pay probably ten times more.

Make sure to write AIRMAIL on everything you send or else it will come by boat and take months to get here.