 Hi, everyone. Welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America, Code Pink's weekly YouTube program, 20 minutes of hot news out of Latin America and the Caribbean. Today we are broadcasting in partnership with Factory of Dreams and Spanish Fabrica de Suenos, a terrific humanitarian campaign focused on restoring relations between the United States and Cuba. I'm really, really excited to be joining conversation today with the founder of Fabrica de Suenos, Carlos Lauzo. And Carlos, I met last week in Washington, D.C. He had just completed a 3,000-mile bicycle trip from Seattle to Washington to raise awareness of his campaign. And he did this with four family members as well. And it's a terrific humanitarian story that I want him to share with all of you today. So welcome, Carlos. What an honor to have you here with us. Thank you very much for inviting me. It's really a pleasure to be here today. And I'm tired from the 3,600 miles that we bike, but I'm also satisfied of what we did. And I am so full of hopes and happiness for the kind of breaches of love that we create with so many people, including you guys, that I just hear sitting, watching the light of the party. And the party is the day when the United States and Cuba are going to embrace our friends as brothers. And I know that that's coming. I know that it's there. I don't have doubts. Well, so, you know, I think all of us at Code Pink would say the same. And we have supported many delegations over the years, the Cuba to support that people, the people relationship and to share stories and to share the humanity that exists between the people of both nations. So Carlos, tell us a little bit about yourself. You have a fascinating story of yourself. I think last week at our event, you mentioned it was like being a child of a divorce, how you define yourself of Cuba and America and the United States. Yeah, well, and it's true. Actually, I'm a child in my family of a divorce, the divorce parents. My parents divorced when I was around four years old. And I know all the trauma for kids that divorce can create, especially when parents don't get along pretty good. And that was a case I in my family do at the beginning, you know, parents fighting for the for that. And sometimes we parents don't know or don't realize how hurtful this can be for for children. And I tied this situation to the same situation in terms of countries. I have been in the United States for half of my life and 55. And I came here in 1991. And basically half of my life in Cuba, I left Cuba when I was 27 and half of my life here, I have been here for 28, 20, 20, yeah, 28 years, basically 50, 55 years. And for me, Cuba is like my mother, because it's a place where I start walking, playing with my friends, being a child, learning music, falling in love when I was a teenager. And but the United States is at the same time, as my father, because this is a place where I fulfill so many dreams in my life, where I achieve so many things that I want to do that I want to be. And basically, I have a profound love for both places. And my heart is divided between the two. And my hope is that these two places, this mother and this father, get along good, get a good relationship for the sake of their children, that are the hundreds of thousands of people, Cuban Americans who live here, who feel in the same way that they do. And basically, that's a little bit my story. I came from Cuba. And Cuba, I was, my mother had to leave Cuba when I was a teenager. I stayed there with my father. When I, in 1998, I tried to leave the country. At that time, leaving Cuba illegally was prosecuted. I mean, you could end up in jail. And I spent one year in prison for trying to escape in a raft. Two years later, when I came out of prison, I prepared another raft. And this time I made it. After four days in the ocean, I came to Florida Keys and I was rescued. That was in October 1991. Since that time, I came to the United States. I made so many, working so many jobs. I really embraced the culture and the country. I tried to learn about the people here, about the history. I, in 1998, I moved to Seattle, Washington there as a way to thank the state because this was all great for my family, for me. I joined the Washington National Guard as a combat medic. At that time, there was not war yet. It was just basically to help in the community any disaster as they watched the National Guard. But it came the Iraq War and I ended up going to the war, to participating in the Iraq War in the Battle of Alusha as a combat medic. Yeah. It's after I came back, one of the first things that I have to basically confront with the idea of doing some type of political or activism for family was when I came back from Iraq in 2004, I came back during my two weeks of R&R vacation and I tried to visit my children in Cuba. I have two children in Cuba who were from my previous marriage and I always kept a good relationship with them. Actually, they live for many years here now. But during that time, they were in Cuba and I tried to visit them. But at that moment, the Bush administration put in place restrictions that prevent Cuban Americans from visiting Cuba. Those restrictions just allow us to go once every three years. Since I have been in Cuba a few months before going to war, I couldn't go now because I have to wait three years. For me, it was so ironic that I was supposedly fighting for my country, my adopted country for democracy. At the same time, I was prevented from visiting my children in Cuba. Then I started writing to members of Congress that was in 2004, 2005. When I came back from Iraq, I ended up testifying in the U.S. Senate in regards of lifting the travel restrictions for eight years. I'm not just saying this is really fascinating that you're sharing this with us today because the story is about Cuba, Cuba's oppression. Here, you have served honorably in the U.S. military and now we're prevented, well, one, prevented just in general for going back from the Bush administration. But also, is my understanding correct that because you had recently served in the U.S. military, you could not go as well? Yeah, but I think that the point was that you couldn't go if you weren't in the period. You couldn't go back home. In the Senate, they tried some senators that were supportive. They were trying to pass some amendments to allow me to go, but at the end, they didn't change that. Nothing would change until Obama came to the White House and the Obama White House changed. The status quo left the restrictions. We couldn't go and see our families and the relationship start getting a little bit better. During those years, basically, since I could go and see my family, I just went back to my business. Basically, for many years, I wanted to study. When I came from Cuba, I was just having a high school. At 40, I decided to go back to school and I started going to college, taking classes. Finally, in the last 15 years, I'm still going to school. I finished completing two bachelors at the University of Washington. Then I completed two masters. Right now, in the way to completing my doctoral degree in education, I am in the last process of writing my dissertation. When I was 40, and I have the support of my family, since I was working full time, so many people helped me to finish, to complete the school. I end up teaching at the University of Washington. Right now, for the last seven years, I have been teaching in high schools in the school district here, close to my house in Washington. One of the things that I have done that, in the last two years, also is taking students, we found the factory of dreams and we have been taking students from our school and parents to visit Cuba in educational trips. Wow, that's fantastic. Fantastic to expose young people, to start people at an early age. That's a really honorable project of yours. Your career as an educator as well. There's a couple things you mentioned that really strike me, you know, the inability to travel to Cuba, which was lifted to a certain degree under the Obama administration and now has been tightened, and also the ability to send remittances back home to family members. That has been restricted again as well. And what's fascinating to me in listening to you talk is that this is beyond political affiliation. This affects all Cubans living in the United States, regardless of political philosophy. And I think sometimes that is lost on the broader US population. We hear one specific narrative that it affects, you know, one group of people and not the other, but it affects all Cuban Americans. And I just want to go back and remind you, or maybe tell you, that in 2000, in like three months ago, when the pandemic started kicking up in Cuba around the world, we created a petition in change that or asking President Trump to leave temporarily the sanctions against Cuba because of coronavirus. It was not even leave the embargo, just some sanctions. And we got already around 20,000 signatures. And most of the signatures that we have there are from Cuban Americans. Basically, Cuban Americans who are in all political, conservative, Democrats, Republicans, it doesn't matter. It's just people who care about their families and they think that the right thing to do is to leave sanctions. And this goes beyond political. People put in the back seat the political considerations and give a priority to human considerations. And maybe in the political discourse, you hear sometimes more the most conservative, the people who are against any type of dialogue. But I can tell you firsthand that the majority of the Cuban American community want a better relationship between our countries and more functional relationships, more respectful relationships between our two countries. And that will benefit everyone. Because when you, for instance, a few months ago, the flights from the United States to different provinces in Cuba were canceled. When you do that, when the government does that, basically any type of Cuban, it doesn't matter what is your political position to visit your family when they live in another province. Then this grandmother who lives in Miami have to go to Havana, get a taxi or a bus and spend another day to go to that province and then spend another day coming back. And that affects everybody. That affects the family who are there, the family who are here. You mentioned the restriction to send money. I want to remind you that we are the only community who have prohibitions on the amount of money that we can send to our family. I mean, our money we cannot send to our families whatever we want. We cannot send more than a certain amount for every three months. I mean, that is something really ridiculous if you won't say it. But not only that, the United States prevent all people from all the parts of the world to use the service of Western Union to send money to Cuba. Basically, if you live in Spain and you want to send money to your family, you cannot use Western Union to use to send the money. It's prohibit, not even restriction. It's completely prohibit because the United States want to prevent the family to access that money. That's something that if it's changed and lifted, it will benefit everyone. You know, the irony of that is it's a policy that's being used principally to attack the government via its citizens of Cuba. But the inverse effect is it's hurting people like you here in the States. I mean, it's a policy directed in one direction, but it basically is kind of backfired in a way, I would say. I mean, it's a great illustration of just how archaic the embargo, the sanctions, the restrictions on Cuba are. It just doesn't work. It ends up hurting people here in the States as well. Then that does not dismiss the overt attempt to hurt people in Cuba. In listening to you, the whole policy just sounds so ridiculous. It's hard to believe that it's still in place. I want to give you an example of how far these restrictions go. Putting one of our trips to Cuba with our students, we basically were paying for the flight for the group flight. And one party told me, Senor Lasso, can you pay for my flight? I will send you the money to one of these Ben Mo or Sele, any of these places that you send the money. Okay. Usually we pay with check and the person send me the money and put in the for the trip to Cuba. And just putting for the trip to Cuba, the World Cuba basically block that money for months. Wow. If I explain that it wasn't to pay for the flight in American Airlines, that was something to do during our, right now we initiate our trip around the United States, our journey, the 11th of July. And I spent a lot of money from my family. I didn't want to ask from anyone because sometimes efforts that involve money are not good. I like to more working with the heart. And I told my, mobilized my family, we bought an old RV, we bought the bikes. But at the end of the day, we already had to spend almost like $20,000 and we didn't have any more money for the trip. And then we decided to ask the community to help us. And we basically for the for the gas for all the reparations for all the sins of food. And we create a GoFundMe page with a target of $8,000 for one month, you know, all basically. And when I create the GoFundMe page, three hours after creating the GoFundMe page, because I work Cuba, build bridges of love between Cuba and the United States was there, GoFundMe block the account. Basically. Oh, wow. So not even that GoFundMe sanction, it was maybe what we call those of us that work on lifting sanctions and not just on Cuba on about 39 countries across the planet that are sanctioned by the United States. Is that what we would call an overcompliance issue by GoFundMe? They were just scared. Maybe GoFundMe did it because if they don't do that, they can be also fined by the U.S. power. I don't blame GoFundMe or banks who are over like overcompliance. Basically, after I explained that the money was basically for paying for the food, for the gas, for anything, then they unblock the account and then they spend like, I have to spend like 21 days while I was biking, explaining to them that the money was basically for the trip because the money never arrived until three or four days ago. We have basically to get a credit card and pay for all the expenses because the people were donating. The people were super excited. Most of the donations are from Cuba and Americans, but I didn't want to say anything until the last resource. Finally, after many letters back and forth, they release most of the money, but just by having the main Cuba, there are a lot of restrictions. This is what a great story to take with you on your trip though. It was a real-time, actual sanctioning of your finance, blogging of your finances as you were traveling. Let's talk about this trip you put together. What inspired you to physically take this on? I mean, you said you was 3,600 miles. You started in Seattle on July 11th, correct? And you arrived in Washington, D.C. last Wednesday, August 5th. We met that afternoon. So tell us about putting what inspired this project and how it all came together. And then it'd be really interesting to hear the highlights of the trip as well. Well, the main thing was, I said before we create this petition to the White House and the petition in a matter of two weeks got 20,000 signatures. And I sent the letter to the White House through the way that we sent letters, e-mail. They also sent the letter through the certified mail asking President Trump to pay attention to this and hear the voices of so many thousands of Americans who want a different approach. I never heard back from the White House. On the contrary, what I saw was that they tightened the economic restriction toward Cuba. And this thing in times of coronavirus, it really made me feel very sad. And I was for like three months just waiting and waiting and trying to send more letters. And finally, one day we were here May 31st in my house with my family. We were watching a movie about, it wasn't actually Michael Moore movie, about political change, about how countries. It's a movie, it's a documentary where he goes to different countries and analyze how things are. And then in the movie, in the documentary, Michael Moore talked about how people accept or people change the merry for the same sex in the United States in a matter of short years, even when before there were a lot of years waiting for that. Basically, the conclusion that political change can happen and sometimes takes longer but can happen in a short period of time. It takes a while for the governments and legislators to catch up with what the social activity is in greater society. And once the two meet, it can happen very quickly. And then I saw the light at that moment. I stand up and I told my kids, they were watching the movie with me, the family, and I said, guys, get up. We are going to leave the embargo. And I said, Bobby, you crazy, what are you talking about? Get up. We are going to run from here to Washington. I'm going to run from here running, right? And then they realized what I was talking about. Bobby, you are not for a scum. You cannot run from here to Washington. And it will take a long time. And then they saw that it was impossible to stop me. And then they start finding ways to do it together, supporting. And then that night, we create the idea of calling the attention of the United States, talking to everybody in the way, American people, legislators, legislators, senators, everybody about the importance of changing this. And we will do it. And we will start training for it. And the next day, we start getting money from my son from this. And we, everything started that day. 40 days later, we were on the road. It's just amazing. It's so inspiring. I mean, it's just so inspiring because it's such a wonderful story on so many levels. I mean, the internationalism of it, the humanitarianism of it, you as a family unit, it was you, two sons and two nephews. And that was just a beautiful thing to see, the five of you together and the relationship you all have and how you just united together to make this project possible. It was really a very beautiful thing to witness and to meet the five of you on the 5th of August. Tell me what some of the highlights of the trip for you were. Well, you saw, I mean, you went, you said your trip was Seattle. You went to basically what we would call the northern route across the U.S. From here, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, all that route, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and basically we are right to DC. But the highlights, there are so many things. When we initiate the trip, first of all, we kept everything quiet. The trip originally was set up for the 18th of July. And we start coordinating with different friends in different places to be able to meet with elect officials. But 10 days like at the beginning of July, so many people, a few people already knew about the trip. And I was a little bit concerned that if the trip get some people who oppose the trip learned about our plans, they could try to derail our plans and start. And also we have the idea of putting the GoFundMe page before. But one of the things that prevented me from doing that was also that I didn't want to say what we were doing. And then like 10 days before, I said, you know what? We are not living on the 18th. We are living in three days. They live. We are going to do it. And everybody was like, what? Yeah, we have to do it in a way that everybody is surprised. And we are the ones who own the news. And basically from us, people can, but we don't want people spinning the news and creating fake news. Yeah. And then that day we create the GoFundMe that morning. Everything came together the day when we depart from Seattle. Highlights of the story. Everything was great. We met with many elect officials in different cities in Helena. We met with the mayor of Helena, the first African immigrant who is a mayor in that place. Also we met with senators, state senators. We met with the press. Different, I mean, like we were covered. The story was a beautiful story of this family fighting and trying to achieve breaches of love and lifting sanctions. Everybody, and not just that, Americans, regular Americans, when we were and stopped the truck in the Walmart to sleep that night, people came to the truck and says, what are you doing here? And then we have the opportunity to explain to these families what we were doing. And people were even donating in the GoFundMe. People were supportive. I didn't find anybody in during the whole trip who opposed or was hesitant when we explained the story behind when I told these people a little bit about my own story as a Cuban American. People were basically super supportive. One of the things that I really got super surprised and one of the highlights of this trip, the higher point for me besides the support, we end up getting support from around the world. If you check my Facebook page, we have people biking in Paris, in Madrid, in London, in Guantanamo. I mean, like hundreds of people sending pictures and video saying, hey, Professor Lasso, teacher Lasso, we are biking with you for breaches of love between the United States and Cuba and for the lifting of the sanctions. Not just one or three, I have hundreds of pictures and video that I don't have the space to put it there of so many people. I mean, from around the world. This, to me, is one of the most important things to highlight because, one, you stopping in the evenings and meeting with US citizens across the country, regardless of community, regardless of their religion, their ethnicity, their political orientation, they really wanted to hear your story and listen to it and supported it. And that is so counter. I mean, one is so encouraging because it just completely breaks the US mainstream media narrative in sharing your story and then responding so positively to it. And it's also completely counter to what's being pushed by everyone's elected officials in Congress and here in Washington, DC. And also with hearing from people all over the world, I love that and I have seen some of the pictures. I've actually had some friends in Cuba share with me, some of those international photos and when you look at the UN vote every October, I think it comes up in October among the United Nations members to lift the embargo on Cuba. It's always somewhere between 100 of the 193 members anywhere from like 185 to 190 countries vote to lift the embargo and the United States and one or two of its loyal allies vote against it. And so your experience and hearing from people all over the world just so reinforces what happens at the UN every fall. And it's just so important. Your story is just so profoundly important. The humanity of it is just the greatest thing. And I'm so pleased to have you in this conversation today because this tearing down of this mainstream media narrative is is so key in getting our voices and desires heard in Washington. And let me tell you something else because I think that the main reason because these policies of embargo and and restrictions, I think that the main reason because the current administration put that there and keep that is because they think that it will be beneficial in electoral terms. Yeah, okay. Now, I if I could give a message to President Donald Trump, I will disagree with that because first of all, whoever is going to vote for Trump in our community is going to vote for Trump. But he is alienating a lot of votes from Cuban Americans who see that this administration is basically hurting their families. And then if instead of getting in the way of more restrictions, he will go in the way of going even more profound in the Obama policies and going deeper. I think that he will get even more votes, not less votes. But it's difficult to to to see this. But in reality, I think that by by cutting in remittances, by creating all these pro blocks for our families, the administration is losing votes in their in our community. And we will see that on November. Right, we'll see that. Well, I you know, that's a really it's a really good point. And it's just it's one thing that we've emphasized throughout the conversation that this these policies hurt all Cubans Cubans living here Cubans living in Cuba. It hurts everyone regardless of political philosophy. And and I agree, I think that's really that will really be a different outcome this fall because of it. I would also argue it's part of why the the opposition Venezuelan demographic is being so manipulated in Florida today, because Cubans see how they're being hurt across the demographic. And there needs to be something to backfill that loss and votes. And I think, and that's a whole nother story, a whole nother thing to talk about. But you can see how one demographic is being is being switched out for another perhaps for election results in the fall. Well, and something that I I want to say because it's always something that the most important thing for this trip for me was how my sons and my nephews behave and react. When we left, when we start this trip for them, basically was supporting me. Basically, they call me dad El Puro, we have to go with him, we cannot leave him alone, and it's going to be also a physical challenge for us. But when we start the trip, and the first day when we have 1000 and 1000 of messages, I mean, people accessing to the article that I publish half million people. And most of the message 99.9% were supporting and we're telling them that they were making history that they were people around the world were so proud then and they start realizing that they they were working for the common good of the Cuban family. They start seeing this from another perspective. They start seeing this from the perspective of life is more important just than the the telephone or the things that you buy. But for when you do something for for the others, when you sacrifice yourself. And I remember my son Carlos Rafael one day, and I was really surprised because he is young man and he usually don't mention things that are so deep in the sense of heart. And then when he came from a long biking, he went across a mountain, he was super tired. And I and he told me, Bobby, and when when I was there, I was so difficult. And then I start thinking about all the people who support us, all the things that we are doing. And in my mind, to go on top of the mountain, I have I start seeing those people watching me. And that helped me to keep going. I was doing this for me and for them. And that's, that's something that really, and really touched my heart. And I hope that this is there for their whole life. And they can bring this to their children and to future generations, you know, and I that tell me that youth are not just don't care, people, young people care is just finding the call of their hearts. The love always brings a call. Yeah. It's so it's such a beautiful story. And your family is very beautiful. And I look at it listening to you describe this experience with the five of you. It's like the five of you were this small microcosm, this small example, this little unit that is such a good analogy for what for most of humanity, I believe, what's possible among all of us. When we have these dreams and we're allowed to express them, and we just go out there and make something happen together as human beings. Yeah, yeah. One, I am a teacher, but I always learn from my students and from life and in this case, from my kids, from my two sons and from my nephews. One day we were biking and start raining and storming and the lighting and we have to stop because the lighting could be dangerous and then the kids board the bus. We drive for about 10 more miles and we spend the night there. The next morning when we were, I was preparing the route to keep going and I said, okay, you two are gonna drive from here. I'm gonna bike from here to this point. And then two of them goes back, one nephew, one son. I said, what about the 10 miles? And I said, I really didn't remember. I said, what 10 miles? He said, yeah, last night we cut the trip 10 miles from here and we didn't bike and we have to recover those 10 miles because if we are gonna do more than 3,000 miles from Seattle to Washington, we cannot be cheating in 10 miles. I mean, that will be crazy and we have to have integrity and we have to do the right thing even when nobody's watching. And I was like, every parent's dream. You know, if we bike 3,000 something and then in the bottom of my mind, it's gonna be, oh, I just keep 10 miles. That doesn't make sense. Let's do the 10 miles and then we went back and we did. Oh my God. That's fantastic. That was, I really have forgotten at that point in the morning, because I was cooking and I said, wow. And I remind them that they gave me an important lesson that integrity is doing the right thing even when nobody's watching, even when you just got watching, but nobody's watching, but you do the right thing. And we kept repeating that through the whole trip. It's just wonderful. You know, I promised you a 20 to 30 minute interview and we are going well over that at this point. And so I just, is there anything that we should add to this conversation? I think this talk is just so important and we're gonna share it widely to just, your story really is a story of what's possible here in the United States. And then we don't, and a lot of us, I'll tell you, don't feel a lot of, a lot of hope for anything right now within this country. And it's just so wonderful that you've had this experience 3,000 miles of experiences and conversations and interfacing with US citizens of all walks of life and to see the commonality. We have lost that. And you have really, you've really, your trip has really shown that it still exists. It was also so, so people were supportive around the trip. I remember myself, my bike went flat in a place where nobody was there. And I started walking waiting for the, there was no signal for the sale. And probably they will, the kids will come back in about one hour to pick me up when they realize that they didn't arrive to the place. And I start walking and then this truck comes next to me and it's, what happened? I said, no, flat tire, but I don't know about changing a flat tire. I don't have any, I just bike him for bridges. And then this gentleman and his wife come down from the, from the truck. They said, we have tubes for the, for the, for the bikes there. And they changed my, my flat tire. They put a new one. They just did the whole thing and just free. I mean, they're just like, oh, we are so happy to be part of this effort at least changing your flat tire. Then we can say that we are part of building bridges. That happened in my trip. The story recorded because it was so, and that's what this trip is about. This is the, the American people, no matter what are the political preference, what are the political backgrounds, what are the creeds we met in Washington, DC with offices of Republicans who support the lifting of sanctions and more humane politics toward Cuba. And then the, the majority of the Cuban American community, this trip showed that there is a mass of Cuban Americans who are no use of one who talk about hate, but those are the ones who talk about love. And 1000 and 1000 of Cuban Americans felt that they had a voice when we were doing this. And this is the, the, the scene that we can take from the trip. I say the party is there. There is a party. There is a fiesta. And the fiesta is the day when we are going to embrace our two countries in friendship, respect. And that's happening. Maybe some people are planning for the party now. We are planning for the party and the party is there. I tell you, I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, I see the light and I say, why people don't see the light yet? The light is there. It's going to happen in a few months. You and I already, maybe, I don't know exactly when you are, I, I'm going to be talking Terry about this. And I'm going to say, we are going to say, remember when we will see reality. The party is happening tomorrow. Michael Moore, where political change seems are going to, and we are going to look back and I said, my gosh, why it took so long to realize that this was the right scene to, and this is happening already. And you're celebrating in advance. Okay. But it's happening. Yeah. It's happening. It's happening. I know that it's happening. So Carlos, tell our viewers where they can learn more about this pre-party planning. What, your Facebook page, Carlos Lazo? Facebook page. I am in the process of doing also like a website. But right now, I have a Facebook page. It's called, you just check Carlos Lazo. And I have there many videos, movies, articles that I write about friendship, about many things that people really actually, I mean, like, like, I have a journalist, a friend, who when I, I, I write an article about these issues. And he said, Carlos, I'm a journalist, I published for one of the most important newspapers in Spain. And I don't have one million readers for, for an article. Because sometimes people are so interested in these issues that when I publish an article, article is written by hundreds of thousands of people, one million. And our articles that talk about these issues, about friendship, about the importance of changing policies towards something more humane, more. And also we have videos of the trips that we have done to Cuba with students. The student has been singing, singing in, singing in the biggest Cuban theater with important Cuban musicians. I mean, it's, it's a page, as I said, of love and hope for building bridges of love. Carlos Lazo in Facebook, so far. L-A-Z-O, everyone. And then, and then I thought we cut the swanials. Yes. So far, without any advertising or any seeing, our, our Facebook in the two last years have been coming closer. We are almost 50,000 people who follow the, the page. Well, so we're going to ask you to share this conversation. I do, I do it. And I, I, I'm happy that who follow our page also can see our conversation. And yeah. That's terrific. So I just want to thank you so much. I just want to thank you as just for being such a wonderful person and who you are. I mean, you just a gift for, for all of us here in the U.S. and to, and to reemphasize, you know, what is possible for all of us together as, as fellow human beings and fellow citizens. And, and for taking the time this afternoon to share this fantastic story and your terrific trip. I, I'm just, I'm so thankful for having met you. Okay. Well, thank you very much, Teddy, for having me here. And also want to thank Medea and Cold Pink for the opportunity to, for, for the meeting you guys there in Washington, D.C. for the great time that we spent together. It was a wonderful, and the product is referring to our code, our code pink founder, Medea Benjamin. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lovely party and the dancing and the, and talking to all those friends who support better relationship between our countries. It was really after all these, those days of biking and meeting and interview, it was like the best end to our trip. To meet with you guys, to, to have between friends there and sharing the same goal, the same dream that is happening, the fiesta, the party. The planning, the party planning. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. I want to just let our audience know that what the F is going on in Latin America broadcasts every Wednesday, 9 a.m. Pacific, 12 p.m. Eastern on Code Pink's YouTube channel. And also we have Code Pink radio broadcasting on W or presented by, excuse me, presented by WBAI out of New York City simulcasting at WPFW Washington, D.C. Thursdays at 8, 8 a.m. Pacific, 11 a.m. Eastern. And we'll have more of our conversation on Code Pink radio this week. So thank you again, Carlos. A real pleasure. We'll be sure to have, more conversations. Thank you. Okay. Bye-bye. Bye.