He has no running water: A couple of times a week, someone fills his big plastic water can with a hose. His toilet is a green pail
that sits in the same room where he cooks and eats. He keeps it half-full of soapy water to keep the smell down, and empties it
down an open six-inch waste pipe under the sink.

"All these years, it's just the same, the same, the same. We never go forward," said Socarras, 57, a city bus driver who lost his
job when Cuba's economy crashed in the early 1990s. "The government says they are trying to improve the lives of Cubans,
but it's a lie."

Former president Jimmy Carter, on a historic five-day tour of Cuba, today visited some places of which this island nation is
proudest: modern biotechnology centers that develop vaccines and do genetic engineering, and one of Latin America's most
respected medical schools.

But as Carter was looking at one Cuba, Socarras was living in another, one that is as much a part of Fidel Castro's revolution
as the achievements in health and education. From the crumbling alleys of central Havana, where Socarras lives, to towns on
either end of the island, vast numbers of the 11 million people here live in conditions that range from poor to primitive.

Castro's 43-year-old socialist revolution has given Cuba a low crime rate and levels of education, child vaccination and rural
health service that surpass those of many wealthier countries in Latin America. But it has also left millions of Cubans, including
doctors and teachers and others in the middle class, facing daily hardships that include tiny rations of food, scarce jobs and, in
many cases, no running water and sporadic electricity. The Castro government blames its woes largely on the embargo
imposed by the United States 40 years ago, though the embargo's actual effect is a matter of some debate.

"I'm glad Carter is here," Socarras said. "He's a man of peace, a religious man, and so am I. But he should know that not
everyone is happy here."

To that end, Carter met today for more than an hour with Elizardo Sanchez and Oswaldo Paya, two of Cuba's leading
dissidents, who are pressing an unprecedented effort to force Castro's government to guarantee free speech and assembly, free
elections and more free enterprise.

Last week, Paya handed the National Assembly a petition signed by more than 11,000 Cubans demanding a national
referendum on those reforms. Castro's government has barely acknowledged the effort, which is called the Varela Project after
Felix Varela, a 19th-century Roman Catholic priest and independence activist.

Socarras said he had never heard of the project, although he recognized Varela's name because his apartment is on Father
Varela Street. When the project was explained to him, Socarras said he was not surprised that the government had not
mentioned it on the state-run radio station he listens to.

"I don't like the system, but I don't fight it either, because it's too hard," Socarras said. "It's done me a lot of damage. I worked
for 32 years, but now I live almost like a street person. It's not right."

This morning, as Carter's motorcade of Mercedes sedans was cruising toward the biotech lab, Socarras was handing his
tattered green ration book to a bread vendor in his neighborhood. The vendor handed him one small roll -- his daily allotment
-- then recorded it in Socarras's book.

Everyone here gets a ration book. Some people, especially those who have U.S. dollars because they work in the tourist
industry, can afford to supplement their rations by shopping in a few grocery stores. But prices there are much higher, and even
many middle-class Cubans have to get by on rations.

After Socarras left the bread shop, he noticed some good news: Another vendor had received a load of picadillo, a pinkish mix
of ground meat and soy meal. Socarras said it had been at least a month since picadillo had been available, so he was
delighted. He handed over his ration card and got a half-pound, his monthly allotment.

Socarras's three-story apartment building is typical of central Havana, a sprawl of dilapidated buildings that is far larger than
Old Havana, the neighborhood of cobblestones and colonial architecture that draws most tourists and where Carter took a
walking tour on Sunday.

Socarras climbed the narrow, dark stairs to the second floor, passing a rat's nest of electrical wires twisting off in every
direction to the building's 60-plus apartments. A forest of 4-by-4 wooden beams had been jury-rigged to keep the ceiling and
balconies from collapsing.

In his hot apartment, where he has lived alone since his wife died of cancer four years ago, he dropped the meat on a small
table next to a Soviet-built refrigerator from 1963. It hasn't worked in years, and he said he's been waiting more than two years
for the government to send a repairman.

A new, South Korean-made refrigerator of the same size sells for $493.95 in La Elegante, a flashy store on central Havana's
main street. But it would take Socarras years to earn that much, doing odd jobs and selling his monthly ration of cigarettes,
which is how he has supported himself since he lost his bus-driving job nine years ago.

The average monthly wage here is about 200 pesos, a little less than $8; many professionals earn only slightly more. Socarras
said his income varies: "I might make 100 pesos tomorrow, and then nothing for two weeks."

In the meantime, he uses the refrigerator as a cabinet to store detergent and some beans.

He has an ancient radio, no television set and a little two-burner stove. His bed is upstairs, in a makeshift loft, which has one
barred window and a ceramic cat -- the only decoration in the place other than pictures of Jesus and of Socarras's three grown
children.

"Most people in Cuba live this way; you get used to it," Socarras said, sitting beneath a ceiling covered with plastic sheeting to
catch the dust caused by the termites eating away at his loft.

Socarras pulled out his ration card and ran through his monthly allotment: six pounds of rice, a half-pound of beans, three
pounds of white sugar and two pounds of brown sugar, a bar of soap, two small packets of coffee, three packs of cigarettes,
two boxes of matches, one tube of toothpaste, a pack of cookies, a pound of salt and some spaghetti.

He said he also gets eight eggs a month, but he's still waiting for this month's supply to arrive at the shop. He's supposed to get
three pounds of potatoes a month, but he said most of the time they don't show up. He said there is occasionally chicken, pork,
squid or shrimp, but it is available only sporadically.

"I don't rob, I don't steal, I just struggle," Socarras said. "They say things will get better, but I don't see it. I am worried about
the future."