Manas winning hearts and minds among Kyrgyz, but probably not PETA

U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Carolyn Viss

Kyrgyz cleaning woman Mairamgyl Satieva gets her mink coat from Lt. Col. Rex Vanderwood, 376th Expeditionary Mission Support Group deputy commander

The Manas Transit Center, like everyone else in the post-Soviet world, celebrated International Women's Day. Celebrating other people's holidays can provide plenty of opportunities for cultural missteps, which can be magnified when they're done by an institution as closely watched as Manas. While an earlier event marking the day -- a basketball game pitting women from the base against a local team -- had a lot more to do with what American women do than what Kyrgyz women do (notice they didn't include the score; I expect it made the Canada-Slovakia women's hockey game in the Olympics look like a nailbiter) -- today's event definitely had more to do with local mores:

In honor of Women's Day March 8, the First 4 club at the Transit Center at Manas, Kyrgyzstan, raised money and purchased 500 tulips to give to the Kyrgyz women who are employed here.

Additionally, because this is the centennial anniversary of Women's Day here, the 100th female host nation employee to arrive on the Transit Center March 7 was presented with a random bonus: a mink coat.

"I didn't even know you all knew about Women's Day," said Mairamgyl Satieva, the recipient of the coat.