From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Bob Carlson, and this is Unfictional.

Unfictional is KCRW's program of stories and original documentaries and each week I begin by telling you that it's part of KCRW's independent producer project, a laboratory for independent radioducers, Writers, and Performers.

But today on the program, I'm also going to introduce you to a new series produced under

the Independent Producer Project Umbrella.

It's a podcast called Strangers, all about the strangers

we meet, the strangers we become, and the strange places we go.

The series was created by radio producer Leah Tao, who came in to talk about

the podcast, so I asked, what made her start thinking about strangers?

Well, there's kind of a personal story behind that.

About a year ago, I found myself in India with my nine-month-old son by myself.

My fiance, who's also the father of my son, had broken up with me and I did what a lot of broken-hearted people do, I decided to go to India, and I got this gig to go to the far north in the Indian

Himalayas to help start a theater project and the people that I was going to be working for had arranged for housing for me and they had told me it was in a monastery

so I pictured this serene healing environment in the middle of beautiful mountains

yeah where I was going to go with my baby and

heel. And when I got there, I walked inside and I saw that everywhere in the house dogs had peed and pooped inside.

And then they took me to my room, which was also filthy, and there was a nice balcony but about three feet of the fence were

missing and my little speed crawling baby could plunge to his death in a heartbeat

and the linoleum on the plunged to his death in a heartbeat.

And the linoleum on the floor in my room

was peeling in like a hundred places.

My son was at that age where he wanted

to put everything in his mouth, and all he wanted to do was like sit on the

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