OBVIOUSLY I won’t be able to capture the ambience on the Turkeyen seawall in front of my home in today’s column. But given the buoyant state of Guyana’s economy, I expect thousands more on the wall today than in previous years. Each year, I would look from my upper verandah and see the thousands that line the Turkeyen wall. Imagine what it will be like today.

In today’s Guyana, despite some hardened minds based on political instincts, Guyanese see a future for this country, a future that has evaded us for over 70 years. As in the HARDtalk documentary on Guyana, one of the interviewees told the host, “It is Guyana’s time.” Yes this is Guyana’s time. And we should all welcome it despite whatever political party we choose.

I will relate a conversation I had about 15 years ago on the Subryanville seawall. We had not discovered oil as yet. I was going west and Manniram Prashad east. We stopped to greet each other and chatted about the future of Guyana and Manny asked me if we found oil if that would not change Guyana forever. I don’t know what he knew back then but that was what he said. Obviously he knew something. Now we have oil and as the host of the HARDtalk documentary noted, Guyana will have tens of billions of dollars coming its way with oil.

Here is another conversation on the sidewall in 1986. I had just come back home and got a teaching job at UG. I ran into a lecturer who taught me history at UG and was now a senior lecturer, Dr. David Chanderbali. Things were rough back then. We had not emerged as yet from the economic chaos the Burnham government had created.

Dr. Chanderbali said he didn’t care for politics; all he wanted from Guyana was to have light, water and foodstuff. Before I come to the point, one last example but not from the seawall. This was in 1988. I had a lecture friend at UG; we were close when we were UG students. We were talking about the economy and he said his friend from the Bahamas was in Guyana and while talking about Guyana his friend was laughing saying that Guyana is the only country in the Caribbean that when you are flying over it you don’t see lights below.

I remember the conversations with those three gentlemen when I look at Guyana today. But let me offer you one more example before I elaborate. This time from UG again. This was in 1990. I had a student named Imtyaz Mohamed who was the manager of a newly created department within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs named the Foreign Service Institute. He gave me printing paper each week to print handouts for students. Other lecturers had their own sources too. It was a terrible period at UG where even chalk you couldn’t get muchless printing paper.

This was Guyana back then when the future was never there and dreams and hopes were all those of us who chose to stay had. Today, Guyana as a county is soaring to the skies surrounded by thousands of kites. The kites will come down as sunset steps in today and lay their restless bodies on the ground but Guyana will keep climbing long after Monday evening when the kites are gone. As Kit Nascimento said to me, ‘The future has come for us too late given our age but the future belongs to those in Guyana who deserve it.’

I leave you with a song that was a big hit around the world when I was in short pants. It typifies Guyana and its people.

The Fifth Dimension- Up, up and away
Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon
Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon
We could float among the stars together, you and I
For we can fly, we can fly

Up, up and away
My beautiful, my beautiful balloon
The world’s a nicer place in my beautiful balloon
It wears a nicer face in my beautiful balloon
We can sing a song and sail along the silver sky
For we can fly, we can fly

Up, up and away
My beautiful, my beautiful balloon
Suspended under a twilight canopy
We’ll search the clouds for a star to guide us
If by some chance you find yourself loving me
We’ll find a cloud to hide us

We’ll keep the moon beside us
Love is waiting there in my beautiful balloon
Way up in the air in my beautiful balloon
If you’ll hold my hand we’ll chase your dream across the sky

For we can, fly we can fly
Up, up and away
My beautiful, my beautiful balloon