Yesterday I heard that a wall came down close to Iseo Serafin’s house. There was much rain during the previous night. This morning I went to see the damage, and I was lucky to bump into Iseo himself. In his mid-eighties, he is walking with a cane since a few years ago. “Only a section of the wall came down,” he shook his head and pointed at a pile of stone and earth with his cane, “but much more will come down soon.” The main problem is that rainwater now finds its own way down as all the old canals are clogged up. Climate change has brought more rain in less time, too. “When I came here sixty-five years ago,” he continued, “there was a man who repaired these walls as soon as a single stone would get out of its proper place.” In the local variant of the Venetian dialect, he was called murador from muro or “wall.” Back then, they did not wait for a wall to come down. “And the canals were cleaned every year or so…,” Iseo added with a sad smile. Sixty-five years later, we can only dream of our own murador, who would spend his days fixing problems before they turn nasty. We shook hands earnestly, and I hurried home up the hill. Progress, what progress?