…no, not the sweet Ethiopian song that Mahmoud Ahmed once sung, but the hindi word for *fair* that makes your Indian shopkeeper’s eyes glinster. The Pushkar camel fair is on and it’s mela mela all around with tourists dropping in from everywhere to see the camels.

Just a short post for now, ‘cos we’ve been busy boys the past few days with recording sessions, trying to stay out of the heat, visiting small dusty towns on a motorcycle and meeting shephard families and their various livestock.

Tomorrow morning at 9.30 me and Maarten will play footie (or soccer) against the Rajasthan team on the main mela pitch -which is normally reserved for showing off special horses and camels-. So the gora’s versus the rajasthani’s! The gora’s being us, the foreigners, like some Indian folks like to shout to you in a *hey whiteass cracker* stylee. Humm, given my allergy to horses I’ll wonder how long I can last if the air is full of horse smell. But at least we can say: we try. Try to lose with our chin up I guess, if the rajasthani’s all prove to be professional players. Just a hunch.

In a few days some more words on the past week’s happenings.