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Ciudad Radial resident Ricardo Mejia Miller, 47, remembers as a child walking out his front door into mud flats and marshes, where he saw monkeys, raccoons and storks frolicking among the forests of native panama jipijapa trees and mangroves.

The largest of the smaller towns is probably Jipijapa, in the province of Manabi, which is the centre of the Panama hat industry and had in 1900 an estimated population of 6000, nearly all Indians.

Jamaican Claudia Nelson weaves baskets from the jipijapa plant as she talks in a beguiling lilt about her life.

Hat-making from the “jipijapa” fibre taken from the Carludovica palm is a domestic industry in many localities, and furnishes an article of export.

J  jejen, gnat. jipijapa, very fine woven straw, used in Panam� hats. jipitera, child’s disease, due to eating dirt.