He drive from Hodeida, the fourth-largest city in Yemen, to the Hays district takes about three hours by road through flat, barren, and decidedly desolate countryside. Hodeida is not a modern place, but traveling into the hinterland is like a voyage back to medieval times. Women were very much part of last year's Arab Spring, but it is as though that never happened. Here, there are no women on the streets, no women shopping in the souk. And there are no women in the area's few restaurants; just men, chewing mildly narcotic khat leaves, drinking black tea, and eating chicken served on tin plates.
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