I have a Kurdish daf I bought from the maker's workshop in the meat market in Urfa (the skin had probably only travelled a few yards after leavng the sheep). Problem was, it was 45C when I got it and humidity near zero. Getting it back to Scotland it went dead and floppy and started developing patches of mould. Tea tree oil diluted by some other oil (might have been neatsfoot, I forget - a lot more than Mr Red suggested, anyway) helped a lot).