Long time since I posted anything on here. A wordpress upgrade broke the old “Options” theme I was using, and I’ve been fiddling with making the blog presentable again since then, on and off. Mosty off as I was spending a lot of time job seeking, then getting ready to move, and finally moving from Minneapolis to Samsun.
Samsun is a small city on the Black Sea Coast of Turkey — friendly, middle class, full of observant Muslims, and a bit dull. I’m teaching English at a private girl’s school outside town, and my husband is doing the same at a boy’s school under the same management. People are friendly, the food is *great*, there’s nothing to spend money on, and a year here should let us recover economically from the debacles we’ve had to deal with since leaving Moscow.
I’m going to be posting a lot more travel writing and catching up on older photographic work, so do want to find a good way to present all this material… which I guess means fussing with WordPress more. I’ll try to post more often, anyway.
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Hi Miss Kira. Did you remember me? I saw your photos and i love them. Thats so profetionel… Congratulations!
Hi Amber, there are currently only 7 expats from English speaking countries in Samsun (that I know of), and five of us are leaving when the school year’s done — there is no international school. Maybe 5% of people in Samsun speak some English; it’s very much an immersion environment for Turkish, which is not an easy language. The city is sort of like a cross between small town America in 1950 and a Turkish village; people are friendly, the food is good (though at this point I’m sick of it, since only Turkish food is available and there’s only so much yogurt and eggplant you can eat), there are chickens everywhere, it’s very socially conservative, and there is almost nothing to do…
Anyway, there are international schools in Ankara and Istanbul, and Samsun does have some good private schools where lessons are in Turkish… but it would be difficult to be here with kids. Internet access is pretty good, which helps a lot. Mail is okay, takes 2 or 3 weeks from the US. Taxes are ridiculous on mail order things from overseas, though — over 50%. There’s a bookstore that stocks Time and Newsweek, but almost no English books are available. Also, though there is slightly more going on in the city center, the air there in winter is atrocious — everyone burns coal to heat their homes and sometimes from the hill over town you can’t see the Black Sea 2 km away the smoke is so thick.
That said, it’s a very safe and stable city. Kids here are mostly happy and healthy, if bored. Their general attitude is VERY small town though. Anyway, feel free to contact me if you’ve got any other questions. –Kira
Kira, my husband was just offered a job in Samsun…well, his current company wants to relocate him…and we need to decide what to tell them. My biggest concern is that online I am not finding a single english/american international school for my children. Is there one? Can you give me some information? I’m going to spy on your website to see what else you have written about Samsun…thanks for blogging
Hi Amber, there are currently only 7 expats from English speaking countries in Samsun (that I know of), and five of us are leaving when the school year’s done — there is no international school. Maybe 5% of people in Samsun speak some English; it’s very much an immersion environment for Turkish, which is not an easy language. The city is sort of like a cross between small town America in 1950 and a Turkish village; people are friendly, the food is good (though at this point I’m sick of it, since only Turkish food is available and there’s only so much yogurt and eggplant you can eat), there are chickens everywhere, it’s very socially conservative, and there is almost nothing to do…
Anyway, there are international schools in Ankara and Istanbul, and Samsun does have some good private schools where lessons are in Turkish… but it would be difficult to be here with kids. Internet access is pretty good, which helps a lot. Mail is okay, takes 2 or 3 weeks from the US. Taxes are ridiculous on mail order things from overseas, though — over 50%. There’s a bookstore that stocks Time and Newsweek, but almost no English books are available. Also, though there is slightly more going on in the city center, the air there in winter is atrocious — everyone burns coal to heat their homes and sometimes from the hill over town you can’t see the Black Sea 2 km away the smoke is so thick.
That said, it’s a very safe and stable city. Kids here are mostly happy and healthy, if bored. Their general attitude is VERY small town though. Anyway, feel free to contact me if you’ve got any other questions. –Kira