Every journey begins with a single step...

"Happy Women's Day", Jo tweeted from Malaysia.

"Where are you off to next?" I  inquired, with a mix of inquisitiveness and envy.

"Who knows? Jô morando onde minha mola està!" She replied, meaning, "Jo stays where her bag does". In fact, that's what she calls her facebook page. It's an idiom she likes to live by. Never planning ahead and living in the moment. If she likes a place, she might stay there for as long as her visa would allow, and then move on  to another country... seeing new places,  finding new faces, making some more friends...

Josefa Feitosa, or Jo for short,  from the exotic beaches of Forteleza, northern Brazil, has been on the road for two years now, with just a backpack, and a smiling face. 

"After my retirement, I was enjoying some quality time with myself and my friends, when my daughter decided to move in with me. I landed up baby-sitting my two year old grandson. I quite enjoyed looking after the kiddo until one day my daughter chided me for feeding him too much junk!" Jo narrated with a tinge of sadness the first part of her story. 

"Okay, if that is the attitude you are gonna take with me, look after him yourself. I am going." And, within a few weeks, a backpack strapped across her shoulders, Jo was on a plane to Miami, the first stop in her voyage around the world. 

Having covered forty odd countries, and all the continents except Antarctica, she is ready to head home, and complete the book on her travels. "I would like to be an inspiration to all the women in the world. I would like to tell them, "don't limit yourself to the stereotype role assigned to you by the society, instead go out there, chalk new territories, celebrate yourself!"

 "And if you have money, do not waste it in plastic surgeries and botox to delay the inevitable. Instead be curious... curiosity might  kill the cat, but it sure keeps us humans alive... and kicking," she adds, highlighting the problem of a majority of modern Brazilian women, always eager for more of the same. 

While Jo has been mainly on budget travel, staying at cheap places with kitchenettes, where she might prepare herself a cup of instant black coffee in the morning, and some sandwiches with bruschetta, she does like to indulge every now and then. " When I get too exhausted, I treat myself to a five star hotel, enjoy a hot bath, a soft bed, and a sumptuous breakfast, with brewed coffee," she once confessed with a laugh.

Jo, with her latent capacity to immerse herself in every epiphany of newness, is superbly optimistic about the world. 

"Wherever I went, I met good people, always ready to help.  Traveling has restored my faith in humanity..."

We hope and pray that Jo's optimism stays unscathed for the remainder of her journey, specially  when she heads home  at the end of next month. For, since January, Brazil has a new anti-democratic, far-right, firebrand as its President. And Jo, by golly, is a free spirit. 

 Jo's India:

From inadvertently, walking into a wedding Mandapam in Chennai, and partaking in the feast to visiting Matrimandir in Auroville, to attending the Aarati at Kashi Vishwanath, Jo tried to experience every aspect of life that India could offer. She stayed with an Indian family, learnt to wear a saree and weave flower garlands. Commenting on the piles of garbage heaped along the roadside, she said, "I guess India is such a large country, with a humongous population problem, this is inevitable". Yet, she was surprised at how clean some countries in Africa were. If Africa with its myriad problems can afford to have a proper garbage disposal system, I suppose so can India," she added as an afterthought. But, of course, it all depends on our priorities. 

Emerging from the Ganesh temple in Pondicherry, she was so moved by the experience, her eyes  welled up with tears even as her face shone with inner happiness. She hugged us and could not stop crying. But, we all knew these were cathartic waters, and needed to flow...