A Cultural Experience...

Yesterday I was hanging out in Little India with Katie. We spent the morning there at Satsang and then did some reading. In the afternoon we wandered around for a while and then did some dusting and taught ESL to a brother and sister who have been in America for about 2 months. It was good times. We finished up our lesson with them and hung out for a few minutes and then decided we would go get our noses pierced. So we walked down about a block to a hair salon/piercing/henna place that advertised free nose piercing. We found a tiny little stud that we liked and asked how much it would cost. "Does it hurt?" we asked the Indian ladies who were already laughing at us.
"Only a pinch! Just small pinch!" one told us as she lightly pinched Katie's hand.
"Um........okay.....we want to do it!" we not-so-bravely told her.
"Sit down, sit down!" they commanded as they hurried over to draw a little black mark on our nose. We went and looked in the mirror and as we came back to what we thought was the waiting area they rushed up with little piercing thingies in their hands. Katie was on the verge of a panic attack at this point. I think she hyperventilated a little bit. We waved off the little ladies for all of five seconds, but before we knew what was happening we had tiny little studs in our nose! Within five minutes of walking in the room, I had a nose ring. No kidding. Indian ladies are the way to go if you want to get your nose pierced. It's kinda no big deal for them. They just laugh at your nervousness and poke holes in your body before you know what happened. I LOVE it.
So- the questions I know you're all asking:
-Yes, my parents know. No, they aren't big fans. But I promised them to remove it if it really causes them great grief when I'm home.
-No, it didn't hurt. On a pain scale of 1 to 10 it has yet to elevate above a 2. Perhaps it was because the adrenaline was pumping at ridiculous levels, but I seriously didn't feel pain as she was putting it in. It stung for like 10 minutes maybe, especially as the adrenaline kinda died out. But even then it was MAYBE like a 2 on the pain scale. I'd put getting a steroid shot at like a 3.5. I'm a pansy.

When we walked back to show all the people we were with at the Center, Michelle said, "Oh praise God! Let me see!" It was adorable. She has 3 daughters around our age, and two of them have nose rings. Plus she works with Indian people all the time, so she was kinda shocked to hear our parents weren't big fans. She was proud of us and really excited that we were contextualizing ourselves. So that's the conclusion we reached- we are now one step closer to being Indian/Nepali! Be jealous!
Oh, and here's a picture.