Danielle Nierenberg: population and parasites.

It sounded like a good deal: an all-expenses-paid trip to Morocco, to take part in a reproductive-health study tour and accept a "Best Population Journal" award on behalf of World Watch from the Population Institute (PI). I would travel with the other 10 award winners from Mexico, the Philippines, Tanzania, Pakistan, Costa Rica, and Morocco, as well as more than 20 PI members, board members, and friends interested in reproductive health, family planning, and population issues. I'd be able to talk about Worldwatch's work on population and collect stories about Islamic Morocco's efforts to promote gender equity and greater access to reproductive health care.

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A few days later, trying not to throw up as our bus lurched through the Atlas Mountains--and thinking gravely about throwing myself under the wheels--it seemed just a tiny bit less wonderful.

This had to be more than motion sickness, or too much Moroccan wine the night before. It was, in fact, giardia, a nasty parasite picked up from dirty water. The symptoms--sulfurous burps, persistent nausea, gut-wrenching cramps, and diarrhea--appear 12 days to two weeks or more after infection, so I couldn't blame my misery on those dried dates I picked up at the outdoor souk in Marrakech. More likely, the culprits were an earlier trip to Mexico to look at factory farms, and my appetite for beans and tortillas.

Luckily, my seatmate was Dr. George Denniston, former associate medical director of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and founder of a Seattle non-profit family planning clinic. George not only prescribed the medicine that finally killed the giardia, he also supplied a wealth of information about abortion procedures, sterilization, birth control methods, and a range of other family planning and reproductive health options. He also kept my mind off my troubles with a steady stream of even more painful jokes.

Other fascinating travel companions included Martha Swai, a quiet woman who dressed in beautiful African patterned fabrics. She was with us to accept an award on behalf of Radio Tanzania, which broadcasts a program about population and reproductive health issues to the country's rural population. Eighty-year-old Russell Hemenway, a member of PI's board, kept everyone laughing with tales of his days in the U.S. Foreign Service and as manager of Adlai Stevenson's 1960 run for U.S. president. Rina Jimenez-David won as best columnist for her reports on population and women's issues in the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

And of course there was Werner Fornos, founder and president of the Population Institute, and the man who brought us all together. Werner has been sponsoring PI's Global Media Awards for over 25 years. For most of that time, he took recipients to countries with the fastest-growing populations. In recent years, however, Werner has organized the study tours in nations that are making progress on stabilizing population and in promoting gender equity and access to reproductive health services. Morocco, a case in point, has developed a surprisingly open perspective on birth control and family planning, and since 1950 the birth rate has dropped by more than 65 percent. The nation has also outlawed domestic violence and enacted legislation to boost the number of women in the national legislature and in senior government positions.

Nor are the changes only at the legislative level. For example, at Lycee Aouda Saadia, an all-girls school in Marrakech supported by the UN Population Fund, girls from all over the country are learning reading, writing, and math, and about a variety of health issues, including reproductive health and HIV/AIDS. And at the Ennakhil Women Association's Center for Psychological and Juridical Support to Women Victims of Violence, women are learning how to stop abusive relationships.

In the end, my giardia confined me to my hotel room the night I was supposed to accept our award. But as I lay there thinking about all I'd seen and the amazing people I met, I knew the tour had been well worth it, if only for the countless stories of how Moroccans are facing reproductive health and family planning challenges and succeeding against difficult odds. So I guess you could say it was both draining and fulfilling at the same time.

Danielle Nierenberg is a Research Associate at Worldwatch.