PAN AMERICAN GAMES : The Old Man, the Old House and the Sea : Cuba: Writer lives in near-poverty 12 miles from Havana, yet asks for nothing.

Arturo Sosa Martinez de Calis lives in the house his father built in 1936 in the seaside village of Santa Fe. The house is built of wood that is warped and tired. Any hint of paint was long ago blasted away by the relentless heat and sea winds.

On the front porch at Arturo’s house at 31012 1st Street is this sign, made of white and black tile: Villa Cuba.

“Because Cuba is our God,” he says.

Arturo, 71, has lived here since 1960, when his family was forced out of their home in Havana proper and to their beach house 12 miles to the west. The five-room house could not have changed much since 1936 except to fade and decay and creak. But Arturo is proud of the house and proud of the sea, which pounds at his back door.

“I love this place very much,” he said. “The house is old--ugly if you like--but to me, it is the most beautiful place in all of Cuba. The only thing left here that is beautiful is the sunset and the sea.”

In the winter, Arturo watches the sunset behind the Pan Gujaibon mountains. In the summer, the sun falls into the sea, burning the water orange and red. Arturo watches from his front room, the odd-shaped room with three windows facing the sea. He says he likes the view, but two of the windows are covered with warped boards. Through the center window is seen the blue-green sea where waters from the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico come together.

This is the room where Arturo used to read his books and write. His father, Alfonso Sosa de Quesada, was a lawyer, poet, philosopher and patriot. This house used to be filled with books. A few years ago, a “seaquake” washed away two rooms, and Arturo’s typewriter and his entire library were taken by the ocean.

Arturo gets a ration of bread each day.

“I am out of everything,” he says.

Yet the thought that some of his countrymen are approaching tourists, in Cuba for the Pan American Games, on the streets and asking for soap and perfume causes him to stiffen with anger.

“Look, I never ask for anything, never in my life,” he says. “I don’t like to see anyone asking for things, small things or not. I will never ask.”

Arturo is asked what will happen to Cuba after Fidel Castro dies.

“Who knows? Maybe I will die before him,” Arturo says.