Peace Corps Forever

The Instagram account @pcvtattoos has been posting Peace Corps-inspired tattoos since 2019. Featuring simple and complex tattoos in many languages from Volunteers around the world, the account brings a new approach to sharing Peace Corps stories. WorldView curated a small selection of photos from the account, along with some comments from anonymous posters.

“I got this tattoo in memory of my host family but especially my host brother. He passed away at 23 years old due to lung cancer. The leopard represents the tribe I was living in, and the roses and heart are for my host family”
“Meaning behind the tattoo is that’s in honor of the region I served in for most of my service! The municipality is named ‘Metztitlan’ meaning ‘land of the moon’ in Nahuatl, an indigenous language. The two circles are supposed to represent the moon, and the plant in the center is a Maguey flower, which is a native Mexi- can plant that is very significant to the culture, environment, and gastronomy of my region.”
“Katagesu hulum yalifal. With enough patience, anything is possible.”

4. “Dear pee bucket … We’ve been through some shit.”

5 & 6. “The first tat is an aloalo, which is essentially a totem pole in Madagascar that symbolizes a person’s life. Each of the symbols have meaning in Malagasy culture, and I wanted to blend those symbols with my experiences. The second is just a solidarity tat that I got along with a few other pcvs because that is about the only thing you can say sometimes when shit goes down in peace corps, right?”