In the first hour at my internship at TV3, Ghana’s first private TV station, I did exactly what I was most afraid I might do; I made my boss think I was a racist.

The lead producer, Elizabeth, had just shown me the editing bays - tiny rooms packed with equally tiny monitors – and an equipment room full of rusty spotlights and discarded camera pieces. Then she asked the Big Question. “Why exactly did you come to Ghana to learn about TV?” she inquired. “You must have better facilities in America.”

I managed to stammer out something about how “you can learn a lot from living in other cultures.”

“Really,” Elizabeth replied. “From the way the American media portrays us, I thought that Americans believed Africans are monkeys swinging in trees.”

“I know!” I said earnestly. “Americans don’t know what Africa is really like. That’s why I wanted to come to Ghana, to find out for myself about life in twenty-first century Africa.”

My guide lifted her eyebrows, curtly said goodbye, and took her leave of me. When I returned to the office, another employee tapped me on the shoulder.

“What’s this?” she said, her brow furrowed with concern. “Elizabeth said that you told her that Africans are monkeys swinging in trees!”

Horrified, I defended myself. “No, no! That’s not what I meant at all!”

Racist, bigoted, ignorant – that’s how I seemed to her. I cringed at what I must have represented to these women. Why did I come here anyway?

--- If my first day was miserable, at least I wasn’t alone. I was one of nine journalism students from the University of Oregon, all of us in Accra to learn firsthand how the media function in a former British colony in which the majority of the population subsists on a dollar a day. Oliver got the Accra Daily Mail. Hana was to work at the Media Foundation for West Africa. I was assigned to TV3. Since we were the first group from the UO to go to Ghana for these internships, none of us knew what to expect.

We arrived in the capitol city of Accra a week before the internships started. I took advantage of the time to flip on the TV in the house that the nine of us shared and familiarize myself with TV3’s programming. My roommates had no choice but to watch TV3 as well because our channel surfing was limited to Accra’s three broadcast channels. Because four of the roommates were to work at newspapers, the four of them read the papers of each other, comparing notes and trying to figure out who had the best internship assignment. Everyone in the house tried to be as supportive as possible. No one felt competitive; we were all doing this crazy new thing for the first time together, and we wanted each other to succeed.

Although TV3 put on a nightly newscast about developments in the Castle (Ghana’s version of the White House), most of the in-house shows centered on lifestyle and entertainment topics. The station filled the rest of its airtime with syndicated reruns like Friends and international 24-hour news like BBC World. The most popular TV3 programs, Music Music! and E-zone, covered the hip life music scene, copying the formats of the MTV shows Total Request Live and MTV News. Hip life is a combination of hip-hop and high life music, and most TV3 viewers tuned in just to watch these shows. Body Talk, starring a Ghanaian soap opera actress, came on right before Asanka Delight, the first show that I saw filming at TV3.

During my second week, I had bypassed the boss’s office and was hovering in the doorway of one of the studios. Three ROYCO brand bottles of canola oil sat on a countertop between where I stood and where Catherine Obutu, the Martha Stewart of Ghana, was chopping plantains. Beside her lay an array of meats I couldn’t recognize. The set-up for Asanka Delight was strange, but also vaguely familiar – the whole scene looked like a low-budget infomercial.

Catherine wore a small lavaliere microphone on her bright red lapel and did a mic check with the soundman before launching into her friendly patter. She enthusiastically described the protein benefits of eggs for growing young children to her home audience of well-to-do mothers-only the wealthiest Ghanaians can afford televisions in the home.

It didn’t matter that no one would let me anywhere close to the equipment to help. My university journalism school hadn’t used this technology since the 1970s, so I wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. Learning to operate a film camera after exclusively using digital in the United States would be like trading my cell phone for a telegraph.

My curiosity overcame my self-consciousness, and I asked a friendly crewmember named Daniel, “Where do you film the nightly news?”

“Around the corner,” he said. He patiently explained that all of the programs – Morning TV, Body Talk, Music Music! - shared the same studio and fought for equipment. If E-zone took the van on location, Esmerelda, Ghana’s own serial soap opera, would have to shoot on-set. Producers shared cameramen as well, and an entire day’s filming schedule could be disrupted when a photographer took a long lunch or a crew got stuck in traffic, like the time when I went on location with E-zone and we arrived an hour late to a shoot only to learn we had lost our interview with Ghana's up-and-coming hip life artist, KK Fosu.

--- After three weeks of observing shoots at the studio and on location, I realized that no one wanted to help me get more involved. Everyone at the station focused on their daily jobs; TV3 is one of the only games in town for TV professionals, so resume building and career advancement aren’t priorities. I realized that if I wanted to earn my stripes at TV3, I would have to make my own opportunities.

Moving from the sidelines to the spotlight at TV3 was not a simple process. I used all I had learned from the political commentators featured on Morning TV to come up with a story that would complement the news, economic, and cultural content of the roundtable talk show. Complicating things further was the fact that Elizabeth, the boss I unknowingly insulted my first day, was the lead producer for the news, and the only way to get my story on air was through her.

But I had a plan. I had been taking private African dance lessons from Wisdom Zigah, the choreographer for the professional dance company at the University of Ghana. Wisdom and I spent countless hours in the humid, sweat-soaked dance studio, perfecting the Gotaa, Bima, and Agbadza dances of the northern Volta region. What better way to show Elizabeth that I took Ghana seriously than producing a segment about dance and music as a form of cultural integration? I prepared my script, filled out the paperwork, and set up an appointment.

Elizabeth did not mince words; “Why should my viewers care that you know Ghanaian dances? This is not news.”

“I understand your point,” I said, responding with much of the confidence that I lacked my first day. "But this isn't about me. I will focus on African dance as a valid means of expression for Americans as well as Ghanaians, for young, modern professionals in Accra as well as rural villagers in Volta. I know that giving me a crew and three minutes on Morning TV is a risk for you as a producer, but I guarantee that I will come through for you.”

She agreed reluctantly, and then the real work began.

With Wisdom’s help, I hired three dancers and a drumming circle and rented traditional dance costumes. I danced, directed the crew and performers, and narrated the script. Daniel and I spent hours in the editing bay polishing the footage. When we were satisfied with the results, he telephoned Elizabeth so that she could preview our work.

I scarcely breathed as Elizabeth watched the monitors. I was proud of my work, but her opinion was all that mattered, and before I could stop myself, I blurted, “Well? What do you think?”

“It can go on air tomorrow morning.”

And I am happy to say that it did.

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