It was a beautiful South Sudanese morning. The air was fresh, the birds were singing, the roosters were crowing. We were sitting at our table in the outdoors dining area. Our jar of local honey had started attracting ants and bees from all around, and they joined us that morning for breakfast. Flies buzzed around, seeking out the source of spilled goods on the table, looking for a tasty morsel for themselves. We all sat in silence, enjoying our private thoughts, sipping our tea, and watching the insects start their day.

“Are the flies poisonous where you live in America?” Simon asked.

“No,” I responded. Although I had never been asked that question in my life, I never judge questions. In fact, I delight in people thinking about the world around them, and wondering what it might be like in another place.

“What about the ants? And the bees?” he asked.

Simon, the school director, is a very intelligent man, and very curious about the world around him. There is a severe lack of learning materials in South Sudan, and very little access to internet, making it quite difficult to learn about the world outside of your immediate context. There was no way for Simon to have this information other than to directly ask us.

“Where we live, no,” I replied again.

“Are there any poisonous insects?”

I paused. I quickly weighed the question, what is the definition of poisonous? First of all, the correct word is venomous. But which insects have venom, and which ones can actually do some kind of damage to a human being? And, I can’t speak for all of America, but for the Pacific Northwest, I knew that it was extremely unlikely to encounter a venomous creature. Save for a spider or two, we were pretty safe. But as far as insects go (which, spiders are not insects), nothing came to mind.

“No, we don’t really have anything poisonous,” I replied.

“Huh,” Simon mused to himself, shrugging at the same time. He took another sip of tea in silence.

I was curious about the questions. They were coming from somewhere. What would make him think to ask about poisonous insects? Why would he even think that flies could be poisonous? Simon is great at critical thinking, so there must have been something that sparked this line of questioning.

“I just thought that maybe they were poisonous in America,” he said, breaking the silence.

“Why is that?”

“Because every time I see Americans, they are so terrified of flies and ants. So, I thought to myself, ‘there must be a reason these Americans are so scared of these creatures.’ And I concluded that it must be because they are poisonous in America, and that’s why they are scared of them so much when they come here.”

I laughed. The logic was perfect, although inaccurate. I knew Simon had to have thought carefully in order to explain American behavior around insects, and it was a conclusion that made a lot of sense. Unfortunately, the reason isn’t as great as Simon gave us credit for.

“Nope, definitely not poisonous,” I reiterated. “We just are irrationally afraid of them.”

“But, why be afraid?”

“I have no idea.”

“Hmmm,” Simon responded. It was in a way that was polite with a mix of baffle.

 But, hey—if this is how afraid we are when flies aren’t poisonous, I can’t imagine what it would be like if they were. Imagine if, instead of being known as creepy crawlies, they were known as deadly doozies.

Actually, let’s not imagine that. Let’s be thankful that Simon’s speculation on our American bugs is not our reality.