NPR.

A little bit north of

A little bit north of Brazil is a country called Guyana. It's only got a population of

800,000 people. It's rich in wildlife and forests. I think the green in Guyana is is greener than anywhere else in the world

Terence Blackman grew up in Guyana.

He's now a mathematics professor at the City University of New York

and Terence says that as idyllic Professor at the City University of New York.

And Terence says that as idyllic as his childhood memories

are, the country did face problems, like power cuts.

Blackouts, we would call them.

And they would occur very frequently and

electricity it's one of it's been one of a really really big challenges.

Income-wise Guyana has been just about the poorest in South America, but in 2015 there was an announcement

that would change everything.

ExxonMobil made a huge discovery of oil that could make the Guyanese the wealthiest people on the continent.

Terence remembers his reaction reading about it after seeing a link on Facebook.

Wow, this is an opportunity to behold and you think, yeah, we're finally, you know, God has finally smiled, God has finally smiled on us.

What a feeling.

I've never had that feeling after following a link on Facebook.

Yeah.

I think that's fair to say, yeah.

So Terrence had this amazing moment,

...