Interview with Walden West Volunteers: Vinegaroons, Nature Names, and Wasp Attacks

Science camp is a core memory shared by the majority of students in the Bay Area. BISV began the program a couple years ago, sending fifth graders to a five-day residential camp named Walden West where they gain hands-on experience with nature and a sense of personal responsibility. This year, a handful of 11th and 12th graders from BISV volunteered to serve as camp counselors, guiding the younger students through activities. I interviewed two of the volunteers, Arshiya K. (‘26) and Rinisha G. (‘26), to find out the details of their time at camp. Additionally, I interviewed a third volunteer, Nathan N. (‘26), on a separate occasion and compiled the answers into one transcript. Their answers take us through their week-long journey in the wild woods of Saratoga, California and their reflection of the event.

Angela: First question, what motivated you guys to join or, like, participate in this?

[Nathan: I love working with kids and I’ve done a lot of volunteer programs in the past with me working with kids.

Angela: Wow, like what?

Nathan: Well, I’ve worked at a sportsplex as a volunteer and I really enjoyed that experience and I wanted to do something similar.]

Arshiya: I can go first. So [BISV] started the science camp program after I was done with fifth grade so I never had a chance to go. So I just basically tried to make this my chance at science camp except as, like, a chaperone, so yeah. I also just like kids so I thought it would be a fun experience.

Rinisha: For me, I have a really big interest in ecology and I’m hoping to minor in agricultural sustainability or something like that in college and Walden West was really the place that fueled that for me when I was in fifth grade. So I just kind of wanted to go back since I had so much fun and make some new memories there. 

Angela: Oh wait, that’s actually really interesting.

Arshiya: That makes me sound so shallow.

Angela: Okay, second. Can you guys walk me through like a day in your life? Like, did you guys do the same things?

[Nathan: Well, we would first wake up and send the kids over to meet with their teachers, and then we would shower very early in the morning. We would have only like thirty minutes to do it. Then we reconvene with the kids, go to breakfast, and eat with the kids. Uhm, we would then go to their field classes where we would learn about science. And then… what did we do next? We would have lunch. They would have another field class, recess, and then dinner. And we would do all of these things with the kids with one break in between. After dinner we would do some kind of activity and go to bed. 

Angela: What kind of activities? Elaborate. 

Nathan: Uhm, the activities would vary from day to day. On the first day we had an astronomy night, second day we had a night hike, third day we had a [game of] Jeopardy on all the things the kids learned throughout the week.]

Rinisha: Closely. It’s like the same schedule but we were in different places at different times.

Arshiya: You can talk about the morning and I can do the evening?

Rinisha: Sure. So we would wake up at 6:45 and we would send the kids to change and brush their teeth and whatever. And in that time we can kinda brush our teeth as well, but we still need to be watching the kids so it’s a little hard.  From 7:15 am to 7:45 am we have a break where we shower, change, get ready for the day while the kids are off with their school teachers. Then after that the entire group meets in the amphitheater for a little bit for some announcements or stuff. And then we go to breakfast. At breakfast we are still hanging out with kids. We don’t eat by ourselves. After breakfast, we go to field class, so every kid has assigned field instructors and they spend uhm…

Arshiya: Two, two and a half hours.

Rinisha: Yeah, basically until lunch.

Angela: What do you do in field class?

Rinisha: Usually hiking.

Angela: Hiking?

Rinisha: Yeah…. but there’s a lot of activities and stuff that the kids do with their instructors as well, so it’s not like strenuous hiking like a sport, it’s not like that. But it’s like, outdoor [sic] and stuff.

Arshiya: And then you have lunch. Again, you can choose to sit at a different table every day so you sit with different kids every day, so…

Angela: You don’t get assigned to a group of kids?

Arshiya: No. We do for, like, your cabins but the lunch tables are assigned so the kids have places but there’s [sic] empty seats for cabin leaders so we can kinda go and intermingle. And then after lunch, they have a little break and then they go to field class again. So like in addition to hiking, they did some fun activities. Like at the garden, they learned about composting and they went to the nature lab where they got to hold snakes and stuff, so that was cool. And then after field class, they come back for recess where they just get to kinda play in the Walden West center and we get a break then. We get to go into the cabin leader room and just like, chill.

Rinisha: And eat.

Arshiya: And eat, yeah! The teachers are really nice, they gave us snacks, so we really appreciated that. And then after recess, we come back to dinner, which is, again, the same thing, we sit with the kids. And then after that they come back, [when] they have a night activity like a hike.

Rinisha: They shower first.

Arshiya: Yeah, they shower first.

Angela: So kids shower every day?

Arshiya: Yep, every day.

Rinisha: Other than Monday, it was kind of gross.

Arshiya: And Friday. But Friday was a half day so it was okay. But honestly, it’s really hard because the kids have two-minute showers and we have to get them in and out.

Angela: Two minutes? What can you even do in two minutes?

Arshiya: We have to turn on and off the taps too. It’s so bad.

Angela: So you control their water. 

Arshiya: Yeah. They have the potential to actually hate me. But the kids were really sweet and they were mostly good.

Rinisha: They’ve got good attitudes.

Arshiya: You know how in Hogwarts you can earn points for, like, houses? They have something similar to that called banner bling. So if you were quiet during your showers, you got, like, banner bling. And if you took, like, two-minute showers. So it kind of, like, motivated the kids.

Rinisha: Yeah. They did good.

Angela: Wow, okay. So what was your favorite activity there?

[Nathan: I would probably say the night hike. I got a lot of alone time.] 

Rinisha: Okay, in terms of, like, me, just kinda getting the time to relax, I love it when they took showers ‘cause I legally can’t be in the room when they’re getting ready to take a shower so I kind of just got to sit outside, so that was nice. In terms of the actual content, I think my favorite was… astronomy night. We did astronomy night on Tuesday, I really love astronomy cause they just kinda talked about planets and stuff. We did, like, a little scavenger hunt about the planets.

Angela: Did you guys go, like, stargazing?

Rinisha: Stargazing? We didn’t. Honestly, we should’ve, but I feel like it wouldn’t have worked anyways ‘cause it was too foggy. 

Angela: Oh wait, isn’t astronomy like studying the stars…?

Arshiya: Yeah they taught us about the planets and stars.

Angela: But you didn’t actually look at them.

Arshiya: No. But they had telescopes out, so you could have looked at them.

Rinisha: Yeah, you could have but I didn’t.

Arshiya: I did. Last day.

Rinisha: Oh you did? Cool.

Arshiya: My favorite was the nature lab. We got to go and hold snakes, it was really cool. I got to hold two, Mocha and Sandstorm, and they were, like, around my neck and it was so cool! And then they showed us like a scorpion beetle called a vinegaroon. I did not hold that.

Angela: It’s called a what?

Arshiya: A vinegaroon. Like a macaroon but a vinegaroon. Yeah. They also showed us a Madagascar hissing cockroach. I also did not hold that.

Angela: Does it actually hiss?

Arshiya: If you scare it, yeah. Its only defense mechanism is hissing. The fifth graders held that. I did not have the courage to hold that. But the snakes were my favorite part. 

Angela: Okay, uhm, I know Walden West apparently has nature names. How does that work? Do you just choose them and what were your guys’? 

[Nathan: We would basically just choose a nature name on Sunday when we first came in, and my nature name was Badger.

Angela: So what motivated you to choose that name?

Nathan: So if you watch Breaking Bad, there’s a character named Badger and he’s pretty funny and I like him. So I chose Badger.]

Rinisha: So you do pick your own. It’s just supposed to be something related to nature or earth and kind of resonates with you. So I chose Blossom because my actual name means blossom in English.

Arshiya: Yeah we just picked ours at Sunday training. So I picked Sunflower. It was actually Rini’s idea. She gave it to me, I am not creative. Yeah, but I thought it was fitting for me, and like, my personality.

Angela: So it can be anything related to nature?

Arshiya: Yeah. Like, oh my god, this one kid tried to name himself Malibu…. It didn’t pass. So he ended up with Ice. 

Angela: Do the kids also get nature names? 

Arshiya: Yes, but they don’t need to use them. That’s optional. We get nature names ‘cause the kids can’t know our real names, so they can’t, like, follow us on social media or anything.

Angela: Ohh, I didn’t know that. Wait, they go to the same school.

Arshiya: Yeah, they’re gonna see me. One of them was literally like, “I’m gonna ask my older sibling what your name is,” and I was like, “Oh! Okay….”

Angela: What’s an interesting or fun story you would like to share about your time there?

[Nathan: Can I get a moment to think? 

*long pause*

Angela: Nothing fun?

Nathan: There were things. Uhm. In the showers, the kids would always be screaming and they wouldn’t be quiet.]

Arshiya: I have very many interesting stories. So twice when my field group went out on hikes, we got attacked by wasps. The first time, seven out of, like, the eighteen got stung and we came back to camp. The second time, we were going out on our epic journey which is a five-hour-long hike ‘cause they combine their two field classes. Within the first twenty minutes we go [sic], yellowjackets start attacking us. Like, they’re stuck to your hoodie, and the field instructor beat one to death while it was stuck on me. Like, I was getting smacked. It was really funny! Then we had to come back since like half the kids were crying ‘cause eight or nine of them got stung. Uhm, and this one girl, she got stung twice on the leg and once in the face and I felt so bad for her. But they gave us ice cream so that kind of helped the kids. They were really happy and we got to go see the snakes again.

Angela: Is this… like a common occurrence? Getting stung by yellowjackets?

Arshiya: No, it was just our group too!

Rinisha: I’ve never heard of this happening. I never heard of it in fifth grade. Like, I swear it was like somebody’s perfume in that group. Like, that’s the only explanation. 

Angela: You didn’t provoke them or anything?

Arshiya: No! And I was wearing the same hoodie every time I saw them and they just stuck to the hoodie. I don’t know if it was the red or what.

Angela: So it might be your hoodie’s fault?

Rinisha: I mean…

Arshiya: That hoodie protected me. I didn’t get stung once. Okay, your turn.

Rinisha: Do I have a story? Can you think of one?

Arshiya: Let me think. I don’t know actually.

Angela: Any fun interactions with the kids? Something you were surprised to learn about kids?

Rinisha: They literally speak in TikTok trends. Like, they don’t speak in English.

Arshiya: There was this one girl who covered her face and was constantly like, “emo, skibidi, rizz, sigma, alpha.”

Angela: Guys, this is going in the newspaper.

Arshiya: Noo, please don’t say that. Can you just edit it out?

Angela: Maybe. Last question. Would you go again? Like would you go next year?

[Nathan: Yes!]

Arshiya: Yes.

Rinisha: I would. Probably at a different time, though, ‘cause catching up in school has been really hard.

Angela: Do they offer different times? 

Rinisha: They do, they’re like in May. So maybe like after college applications next year, like when we’re done with senior year.

Angela: But the camp isn’t with this school then, right?

Arshiya: Yeah, but I want to go with BASIS. Honestly, if I was a senior, I don’t think I would have that much work to catch up on, so I would be open to going again. 

Angela: I think I’m going to go next year.

Arshiya: You should go!

Rinisha: You should go, it’s a lot of fun.

Angela: I will. Okay, that’s it! Thank you!

This trip was definitely a memorable one for both the fifth graders and the volunteers, filled with exploration and discovery. The volunteers were able to mentor younger students while reconnecting with nature, away from the distractions of the modern world. From their unanimous agreement and enthusiasm at the idea of returning the next year, it’s obvious that science camp is an extraordinary adventure everyone should experience at least once.