Injuries in Beer Land!

Safety at the brewery left something to be desired. Safety, in general, in Vietnam was that way, it was definitely one of the scarier places that I've lived and worked. I'm not sure if they have safety regulations but from my experiences there, nothing was required. Learning to brewing in America, safety was the first lesson I was taught. I tucked my jeans into my knee-high steel toed boots, donned my high school chemistry class green chemical goggles, thick chemical resistant gloves that were four sizes too large and set out to work. I was a brewer! If my mind didn’t yet believe it, the outfit worked to convince me.

It seemed my boys didn't need the outfits to be convinced that they were brewers, just the directions. I had brought my pink boots with me from America and I wore them exactly one time, I think. There were a couple pairs of old, dusty water proof boots in the corner. The only time I saw the boys wear them was when they were installing a waste water treatment plant in mud in the back yard.

There were no hospitals on Can Gio and we were two hours away from one via motor scooter and ferry. The hospitals there have no life flight helicopters. I'm told that the hospitals there don't even feed you food. If you'd like to eat during your stay, your family has to bring the food to you.

It's not that anyone was careless there, it's just that things were so different. For starters, it's about 90*F there everyday of the year. Some days a few degrees hotter, others a few cooler but overall, its hot. The brewery, being in a palm hut, had no air conditioning. We had it in our bedrooms and I quickly learned that in Vietnam, aircon is for sleeping. The rest of the time, you just get used to sweating.

As a result, we wore as little as possible. The idea of wearing steel toed boots and jeans to brew in Can Gio seems outrageous even today as I tell this story. So we wore shorts and flip flops. (That was the year that I went 365 days without wearing shoes.) I was actually more adamant that gloves be worn above anything else. We had an excess of labor though and that went along way in ensuring everyone's' safety. More hands definitely made a lighter load. And the boys weren't dumb, they knew to protect themselves.

And if they didn't, then they were gone and I never saw them again. Which was the case with Na. I'm not sure exactly what happened except one moment we were working and everything was fine and a bit later on, I saw him clinging to one of Kien's ice blocks. Somehow, he had burnt his hands. That night, he left the brewery and I never saw him again. It's different, brewing in communism.

Mike is a human that was proud of the danger. I can understand this mindset and I think it's what attracts a certain type of person to want to brew in these circumstances. He never would have achieved what he has, without this but its a double edge sword so to speak. I have since learned that lack of limits aren't necessarily healthy. You have to learn to protect yourself and to establish your own limits.