Deschiderea sezonului sportiv

Even though the 250 lb man who had finished his fourth and final wrestling match was more tired than I, I was dead tired after just watching a day full of soccer, cycling, wrestling and, thanks to me, some frisbee on the side.

Sunday was the opening of the sports season in Mereseni, a day full of different competitions on the village's soccer field. I couldn't go last year, but this year I came with two Canadian tourists, Ziggy and John, and my frisbee.

Ziggy, John and I came from Chisinau in the morning, and I gave them a short walking tour of the village. Ziggy had been to many villages in east Asia, and John was born and raised in a small town in Newfoundland, but this was their first experience in an Eastern European village. They got a good sample right away, as an old lady and her middle-aged daughter called us across the road to serve us wine and candy. It is a Moldovan tradition for a family to mourn the anniversary of a loved one's death by serving wine to anyone they see in the village. I understood the situation and began a conversation with the women and a man who later joined us. My visitors had no idea what was going on, and after seeing me drink my glass of wine in one gulp, assumed that they were about to drink grape juice; needless to say, they were surprised when they tasted something stronger.

After quick stops at the cemetery, culture house, pasture, my house and the school, the three of us went to the field with my frisbee in hand. We were there early for the festivities, but there were a couple dozen kids hanging around the field, so we started a game of ultimate frisbee. I had taught my English students how to play the week earlier, so they knew not only how to play, but also how to say, "Here!" "Nice defense!" and "The score is 3-1," in English, among other phrases. Knowing that the soccer game wasn't scheduled to start until 2 p.m. and that that meant it wouldn't actually start until 2:45, the three of us left the frisbee with my students and went back to the house to have some lunch.

After lunch, we returned to the field to watch the soccer game, which had just started. There was a lightly contested match between Mereseni and Sarata Mereseni, the small Russian and Ukrainian village that shares a mayor with Mereseni. But the real match was between the adults in the village and the boys in the village under 18 years old. It was well played, and I'm not sure what the final score was because we were drawn away multiple times to throw the frisbee in a circle of kids.

The 90-degree weather had us constantly going to the nearby store to purchase, at various times, water, lime soda, ice cream and beer. With the heat not showing any sign of stopping, the soccer game ended, and there was a brief cycling race among the kids. Then the crowd of hundreds gathered around some gymnastics mats that had been laid together on the grass. It was time for wrestling.

Moldovan wrestling, "trinta," is a simple form of wrestling based solely on takedowns. The purpose is to put your opponent on his back as a direct result of the takedown; if he lands on his stomach, the ref blows his whistle and both wrestlers return to standing positions without any points being awarded. The two most common ways to achieve this are with a fancy but easy to escape head-and-arm throw or by gaining position on your opponent's side and sweeping his leg. Throws are made easier because both competitors wear a belt. In my opinion, it's a lesser form of wrestling than the folk-style and freestyle wrestling that is prevalent in U.S. high schools and colleges because there are so few possible successful moves, but nevertheless it's exciting.

The competition was divided into three age divisions, the first of which featured boys up to 14 years old fighting to win a rooster. At this age level, the wrestling was simplistic and focused mostly on head-and-arms. The winner, Mihai Brinzeanu, was clearly more experienced and used a larger variety of moves to take down his opponents.

The second division was for boys up to 18 years old, who wrestled for a lamb. There were more close matches, and many of the boys were using strategies they had adapted from the judo training that they receive in Hincesti. Denis Mititelu, a tall, slender and muscular kid, used excellent positioning and fast hands to win, and he put the sheep on his shoulders and paraded it around the mats.

Then it was time for the adults, who wrestled for a ram. I had thought of entering in the competition, but was happy that none of my students had mentioned it to me. Then, as men were signing up the competition, some acquaintances of mine in their 20s asked me if I was going to wrestle. I demurred a couple times, but then said, "Okay, I'll try." I told the mayor to sign me up, but he refused to put me on the list. Then I told him to sign up Bill Clinton. He still refused. I'm not sure what his reasons were, but I'm sure he wasn't afraid of me winning it all. After five minutes, the other men and I stopped asking him.

All in all, 26 men from the village entered the tournament. Most of the matches were pretty good, with much better defense than the boys' matches. Several pairs of shorts were ripped during fights, which added a lot of amusement for the crowd and a little bit of skin for the girls. In the end, a boy remained to fight a man: Denis Mititelu, the boy who had won the lamb, was matched against Victor Cucereanu, a 250 lb man in his mid-30s who, although shorter and with blond hair, had a similar muscular build to Zangief from Street Fighter II.

For the first few minutes, neither fighter had a clear advantage. The boy was more active and aggressive, but the man was immovable and was directing movement around the mat with his hand on the back of the boy's neck. Middle-aged men exclaimed to their friends, "Uite la patanul acela." "Look at that kid." After five minutes, the timekeeper yelled, "Time!" but instead of going to a contrived overtime, several men in the crowd said, "Let them wrestle." The match continued.

Minutes passed. Denis continued his assault, sometimes getting a leg and knocking his opponent over, but Victor always able to recover to his belly. Victor, although flagging from the heat and a lack of conditioning, continued to show flashes of power, reminding the crowd and his opponent that he was twice as old and nearly twice as large as the juvenile challenger. Whereas Denis rarely came close to putting Victor on his back with his takedowns, Victor used his weight and power to his advantage, and Denis barely escaped several times by bellying out.

As the sun beat down and hundreds of villagers looked on, the man and the boy continued their battle. After one burst of activity, Victor grabbed a water bottle out of the crowd and doused his face. After another, Denis sprung up from the mat and stood ready to fight. Victor stumbled up and smiled at him in disbelief. The crowd laughed; momentum was on the boy's side.

A minute later, Denis took Victor down to his stomach again. Denis stood up quickly. Victor rose up wearily, looked at the referee and waved his hands in front of him; no more.

The crowd erupted. The boy jumped up and down, pumping his fist in the air before collapsing in the center of the mat. His friend came to give him a high five and a bottle of water. After 30 seconds, Denis stood up, grabbed the rope that was wrapped around his new ram's horns, and led it on a short trip around the mat before passing it to his father. Later, as according to tradition, he would butcher the ram and hold a feast for the winning soccer team.

After the final match, the crowd lingered around the field. The evening air had cooled slightly, and everyone continued to socialize and revel in the uncharacteristically summer-like day. The day's events, especially the final, had electrified us all, and no one was eager to go home.