My Tattoo

It’s pretty much always completely out in the open.  Even in the middle of a Wisconsin winter, it’s on one of those patches of skin that very likely may peek through all the layers of outer gear.  Yet, it’s very rarely noticed.  A young boy in Nigeria noticed.  My mother eventually noticed, although she thought I’d just drawn on myself with marker.  A few other people here and there have said something, but generally it’s more of a “do you have any tattoos?”  “Just this one.”  “Oh, I hadn’t even noticed that.”

It is very small.  It is also very important to me.  I got it in Zambia.  A friend of mine did it with a sewing needle and calligraphy ink.  She did a lot of them for a lot of volunteers.  All the same, or relatively the same, depending on how drunk she was when she did them.

Although I was living in Southern Province, at the time we were considered part of Central Province for Peace Corps org-structure purposes.  A group of Central Province volunteers had liked how the abbreviation for Central Province Peace Corps, CP PC, was reminiscent of the band name AC DC.  They designated the lightening bolt as Central Province’s symbol and it stuck.  It was on the Province t-shirts, carved into the Peace Corps house’s gate, painted on all sorts of things, and it was the tattoo.  Except for the people who got theirs when she was drunk; they got tadpoles.

After trying to find pictures of it, I get why people don’t usually see it.  I went through years and years of photos and found one where it’s visible.