Hope of a Dream

by Ana Catarina Sousa Taveira (Brazil)

I didn't expect to find Brazil

I have been taking entrance exams for 3 years to enter medical school, I dedicate myself and do several entrance exams in the expectation of being accepted at a federal university. In Brazil, there is a national entrance exam called Enem - National High School Exam - a hunger game only without weapons, with millions of people dedicated to this entrance exam for an entire year, you need to see how crazy it is to decide the future with a black pen and a ninety question test. However, there are people who can defeat and enter university and others are like me and need to try Enem again. With the result of Enem, in January 2020, I felt discouraged from trying the entrance exam again. I was thinking about quitting trying to be a doctor and making another profession, as if my faith had ended. However, my perspective has been changed. traveling in the first days of February 2020 to Jequié, in the state of Bahia, to take a test at the State University of Southwest Bahia - UESB. On January 30, 2020, I decided to take the UESB test, I admit that at first I was discouraged because I failed the national exam, in addition to living in a small city in the state of Maranhão, 20 hours from Jequié. So, the next day, I traveled to Teresina and then to Jequié, in the state of Bahia, it was a long trip, but on the way I was observing the places and the landscapes. When I arrived at the city bus station, I went to the hotel and started making friends. The test was the next morning, I had coffee and thought about taking a taxi to the University, which was the place where I would take the entrance exam. However, in the meantime, I met a family of three - mother, father, son - at the hotel, friendly, they liked to talk and said that he came to accompany his son on the test, praising my persistence for traveling from one place to another. one place away from the other to take the test. So they offered me a ride, agreed to drop me off at the test site and pick me up, I admired them because they were strangers I just met and the couple treated me like I was their daughter, I particularly thanked God for this gift, because basically I had traveled to a strange place and I didn't know anyone. Ah! The test was great, it was very good, I liked the theme of the essay, the Humanities and Languages test was perfect, it was as if the test had been done for me, I read and answered all the questions and everything I had studied was back at the exam, it meant that my confidence was being restored in a strange way. On the way, I met the family again and saw in everyone the empathy to cheer for my approval. They told me about not giving up, that we have to run after dreams and believe in God that he knows everything. I had heard these speeches from people close to me, but never with such conviction that these foreigners spoke to me, it moved me and showed me that there is a real turnaround in my dreams. When I returned home, I told my mother about my private adventure and then I wondered how much this trip would be worth, which restored my confidence in studies and faith, which made me believe that there is the right time for everything and that there are people who they will always support me by rooting for my dreams.