Year 736, Late Spring · East Workshop
Interview by Akari Mori, Co-editor
Ruben Salcedo repairs ordinary reading copies and teaches simple book care in East Workshop. He worked in a lending library before his passing away and returned in Year 18. I met him at a table where a learner had left a cloth-covered practice book under a light board to dry. Ruben had written a note beside it so nobody would move it too soon.
What do people bring you most often?
Loose pages. Covers that don't close comfortably anymore. Sometimes a book is perfectly sound and somebody wants to learn how it's held together. I like that. We can look before there's a repair to do.
Do you remember the first book you repaired?
Not well enough to describe it honestly. I remember being allowed to help with small repairs at the library, and I remember checking with someone before I used a material I hadn't used before. I was very careful about that. The actual first book? No, I couldn't tell you.
What do you ask a new learner to notice?
How the book opens. Where it wants to rest. People sometimes hold it flat because that makes the page easier to see, but the binding may need a little support. We start there, with a folded cloth if that's suitable. You can learn quite a bit before you pick up a tool.
What has changed most for you since your resurrection?
The amount of life outside the work. I loved books before, but there were days when I got home and had very little left to give anybody. Now I can spend a morning at the table, help with Bible study later, and still want to walk home with someone. There's time to know the people who bring the books.
And I can learn a different job. I help in the garden near my home. I'm better with the beans than I am with deciding when to pick the squash. My neighbor checks with me. Kindly, I should say. She doesn't stand over the whole garden waiting for me to make a mistake.
Was there a time when someone helped you learn in a way you still use?
Yes. After I returned, I was learning a simple stitching method that I hadn't used before. The teacher showed me, and then my thread went around the wrong side. He could have finished it in a moment. I said, “Leave me something to try.” He put the sample beside me and waited.
I remember that much more clearly than my first library repair. He stayed with me, but he let me work it out. When I help a learner now, I ask before I take the work from their hands.
Does that fit the way you help with Bible learning too?
It does. People need time to answer. I help learners find passages and keep their place while they read; their instructor looks after the lesson. Sometimes the useful thing I can do is sit quietly and let someone finish a thought.
James 1:19 says to be quick to listen and slow to speak. That gives me something definite to practice. I want the person to understand what Jehovah is teaching them. I don't have to fill every pause.
What are you learning at the moment?
Making a cloth cover that opens easily without pulling at the first page. Mine is on the next table. You can look, but don't lift the board yet. That's my drying note too.