Journalled on Sunday, 16 November 2025 | Santo Cristo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: 27 degrees, hot, sunny, and slightly overcast.
It is Sunday, and I will take Yasmin to her ENEM exam.
ENEM is a national Brazilian exam for all pupils who have completed or are about to complete second grade at school and intend to attend university, particularly federal and some state and private universities.
It is a national vestibular exam, which makes it extremely difficult and competitive because you are not just competing with pupils from your region, but with students from all over the country. It is considered one of the most difficult and unfair vestibular exams in the world.
The second session is today; the first was last Sunday. In the past, ENEM took place in a single session, but it is now divided across two consecutive weekends. Once pupils receive their final marks, they use a government online platform that connects applicants with universities across Brazil. Their score, chosen subject and intended profession all shape which courses they can apply for.
It’s more sophisticated than I’ve described, but it is basically this.
Yasmin is sitting ENEM as a treineira, something like a practice candidate, because she still has one year of secondary school left. She is allowed to take part this year, but her result will only count officially when she sits the exam again next year.
However, if next year’s marks are worse than this year’s, she may use this year’s score. Good luck to Yasmin and to the millions of other pupils who waited outside schools at midday today and last Sunday to sit ENEM, an exam that could help define their futures.
I had worried that taking Yasmin to the exam would leave no time for my early-morning routine: exercise, journalling and writing a blog post. Then I unintentionally woke at 4:30 and managed to do everything before leaving home at 9:45.
The idea was to take her to the local Portuguese baker for breakfast before the exam, as we did last week, but Nalva suggested we have breakfast at her place, which was good because I got to save some money.
When I arrived at Nalva’s and Yasmin’s, Perola was the happiest to see me, as always. It always amazes me how this simple little mongrel dog is so expressive and charismatic in her own way. I had some coffee, and Yasmin and Nalva had breakfast. At about 11:30, Yasmin and I left to take her to the school where she was taking the regional exam, on the same street where she lives, about half a kilometre away.
On the way there, we talked and talked. I tried to give her pep talks about life, the difference between acting and reacting, and just doing her best on the exam. If she does her best, then whatever the result is, it is what it is for that moment in her life.
When the school gates opened, I kissed her on the forehead, as I always do, wished her luck and asked her to message me when she had finished or arrived home.
The exam was in Botafogo, and since I was already there, I decided to walk through the neighbourhoods towards the city centre, then take the VLT tram back to Santo Cristo.
My route would take me through Flamengo, Catete and Glória. Last week, I had followed more or less the same route along the beaches beside the Bay, but this time I wanted to explore the streets inside the neighbourhoods.
Rio is beautiful along the coast, with its beaches and the Bay. Yet the streets inside these neighbourhoods have a beauty of their own: leafy roads, local shops, and open bars and restaurants where people drink and eat outside. It is lively, intimate and mesmerising all at once.
In Catete, I wandered around a handicraft fair. On Sundays in Glória, there is a sprawling open-air market selling fruit and veg, handicrafts, clothes, collectables, homemade food to eat on the spot and craft beer. You name it, they sell it there.
Yet beyond the stalls and commerce, what makes the market truly sublime is the movement of thousands upon thousands of people from different backgrounds and communities.
During all of this time of my walk, I was buying 0-alcohol Heinekens. I haven’t drunk alcohol in two weeks, which I think is very good, and I’m very proud of it; more importantly, I’m not missing it- that is, the alcohol.
The Sunday fair in Gloria is famous in Rio, and it has mutated and grown, now sprawling into neighbouring public parks like one of those monsters you see in old sci-fi films that gets uncontrollably bigger and bigger and bigger.
It is enormous, and what I have come to realise is how popular these fairs are here. We who live here take them for granted, but when visitors come and go to such a place, it blows their minds.
I love walking around Rio on a fine day, drinking zero-alcohol beer and taking photos. What more could one want? As I wandered through the fair and along the side streets, camera in hand, I realised again how much I love photography, especially street photography. It is organic, spontaneous and natural, beautiful in its simplicity, and both artistic and rewarding.
I passed Marina da Glória without stopping and continued to Santos Dumont Airport, where a VLT station is just outside. Rio de Janeiro is so unusual that it has an airport in the city centre, facing the Bay. It traditionally serves shuttle flights between Rio and São Paulo, although it also serves other destinations in Brazil.
Back in Santo Cristo, near Guarabira’s bar, I had another zero beer and stopped at the local supermarket for food before heading home. Later, I worked, watched some TV and tried to relax.
Be kind and be happy. If you cannot be happy, still be kind, but never be naïve.
In bed by 10 p.m.
Thank you for reading. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments.
Richard
