Fr Alberto Gauci’s blue eyes glisten as he describes how the Maltese flag flies alongside that of Honduras at the spanking new stadium that seems to rise from the mud of the dusty town in Olancho.
“I was promised that the Maltese flag will continue to fly over the stadium, after I die,” he says in fluent Maltese, with a Spanish lilt.
The project, which was just an idea germinating in Fr Alberto’s head six years ago, received unexpected impetus last year when the BBC featured his mission to complete a 20,000-capacity sporting arena.
At the time Honduras had qualified for the World Cup, so the video of chain-smoking, skinny priest went viral, helping him raise the remaining $30,000 to finish the job.
“About 18,000 people turned up there for the inauguration match. I have never been so infected by people’s happiness,” Fr Alberto says, excited at the prospect that the stadium will help keep children away from gangs and drugs.
With one of the highest murder rates in the world, good publicity in Honduras is so rare that the President showed his appreciation by donating enough money for the turf, floodlights and car park.
“We’ve been talking and discussing the problem of drugs for years, yet nobody does much about it,” he says.
Refusing to ever sit idle, he set out to offer the poor community an alternative, away from violent family feuds and deadly drug crimes
Refusing to ever sit idle, the 68-year-old Franciscan set out to offer the poor community an alternative, away from violent family feuds and deadly drug crimes.
The stadium’s inauguration two weeks ago has helped instil a sense of national pride, at a time when the country is in the doldrums of drug wars and a crackdown on corruption.
On the day, Fr Alberto was invited to kick off the match and everybody was celebrating in their Sunday best.
The stadium is already on track to become a place where the whole family comes together for any kind of spectacle, be it religion, sports or culture.
Padre Alberto, as he is fondly known to his parishioners, has been in Honduras for 43 years tirelessly working to improve their lives. He is credited with raising enough money to build an old people’s home, an orphanage, a prison – to replace the cramped Sate-run one – and a healthcare centre.
No wonder, he has a road named after him in Juticalpa – Bulevar Padre Alberto Gauci, Malta – a gesture he feels he does not deserve and entreats for this detail not to be mentioned in the newspaper.
Dressed in a camouflage T-shirt, that has a pocket big enough to hold his menthol cigarettes and a lighter, Fr Alberto steers away from the formal priestly robes during the day and dresses simply to fit in with his community.
Raising funds for the stadium has been an uphill struggle – whenever Fr Alberto was given a mobile phone for Christmas he would sell it to buy a sack of cement – until last year’s coverage.
The articles and footage on the BBC and The Sunday Times of Malta also encouraged Maltese living in different parts of the globe to donate. He is grateful for every cent he can pump back into his projects.
Fr Alberto still considers himself Maltese and when he was offered citizenship in Honduras, he only accepted once he was assured he could keep his Maltese passport.
In Malta on a rare visit, he chats animatedly but his tanned forehead wrinkles into a frown when he says the reason behind his visit is to bury his 93-year-old father, Bertu.
“My regret is that I didn’t make it in time to see him alive,” he says, consoled by the fact that at least he has been reunited with his siblings.
As he prepares to return to Honduras on Tuesday, his appetite satiated with enough pastizzi to keep him going until his next visit, Fr Alberto is probably already dreaming about his next big social project for Juticalpa.