False Cognates

So I learned something new in Spanish today. I remember in high school learning that a ´groceria´was a grocery store. Just like, a panaderia is a place where you can buy bread or a ´cafeteria´is a place where you can buy coffee. Or a heladeria is a place where you can buy ice cream. Seems logical, right, if the word for bread is ´pan´and the word for coffee is ´café and the word for ice cream is ´helado´? My co-teachers were helping me fill out a form for official use today and I learned that ´groceria´ is not a cognate for grocery store. I knew that supermercado, or supermarket, is better used here in Ecuador, and definitely refers to what my job was in Meijer. Here, ´groceria´means a stupid person to the people at least in Ecuador. Imagine my surprise! So, don´t refer to Meijer as a ´groceria´, or you will certainly get weird looks! It was a very interesting learning opportunity and I learned yet another false cognate that I never learned in high school. Maybe in some places, ´groceria´translates to grocery store, but here in Ecuador? It only means ´stupid person´. Definitely something I had never learned in high school or college.

I survived my first full day of teaching yesterday and my first week here in Ecuador. I walked around the city more this weekend and discovered that there is a small park nearby, and that the first road that I was on coming from Quito was the Pan American highway, known here as the ´Panamericano.´ I also discovered that many of the students here do not always know each other in classes, so I tried to change that yesterday. We played the game, ¨Three truths and one lie¨and after a bit of explaining and examples, they understood how to play. They were laughing by the end of the class and got to know quite a bit about each other too! It was also good for me to come to know my students as well.

Well, that´s all for now. They´re doing construction on the road outside of my apartment so it wouldn´t be very pretty if I were able to take a picture of the surrounding area now (plus, it´s going to rain again. It always seems to be overcast in the middle of the day when I have free time here. I do have some rainy pictures that I can upload when I´m back on my netbook rather than a school computer.)