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Manolo De Los Santos, 21, was 16 when he first went to Cuba with the Pastors for Peace Caravan. On this his fifth trip, he is now a project coordinator. Fluent in Spanish, De Los Santos says that as a young person growing up in New York City, he was always concerned about U.S. foreign policy.

“The more you learn about Cuba, the more you get excited about everything they are doing, like the right to education and health care and the way they defend their basic human rights,” he says. “And being that we are still fighting for those things here in the U.S., Cuba is offering an inspiration.”

De Los Santos and four others, including two Canadians, one German and a Philippino, are traveling in one of 14 buses that will meet up in Texas before crossing into Mexico on their way to taking supplies to the island south of Florida.