As I walk past their stone wall, the husband and wife look up from their labor of moving a large granite boulder into the place they made for it. They have a weekend house in the remote mountain village of Cola in Val Codera, Italy.
“Where are you from? Germany, France?”
“No. The United States.”
“Wow,” the husband says, “I have a great grandfather who moved to California in the 1920’s, and another who moved to Argentina. They were looking for a better life.” There is a pause and then they both shrug their shoulders. “Now the Africans are coming here.”
The wife rubs her index finger and her thumb together to signal money as a motive.