Word: barracao
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Complaints of another kind came from the prospectors. Prices skyrocketed as local landowners insisted on barracao (literally the trading post but, in another application, the company store), charging outrageous amounts for food and other necessities. Bottled water cost $3 a liter, eggs 500 apiece. At the same time, roving bands of local ranch hands began to extort gold from the miners. Soon, Serra Pelada was an armed camp...
...valuable metal in its own right, as well as manganese. Says a government mining engineer: "Our job is to orient the garimpeiros. They're individualists. Many were small farmers. They know this is the chance of a lifetime." On yet another level, official price controls wiped out the barracao, with the government trucking in 40 tons of food and other supplies a week. Says one garimpeiro, "This is the cheapest place in the country...
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