“I experienced so much brutality, abuse and crime, and it was hard to stay positive,” he recalls. “I grew up in a house that was more than a hundred years old made out of cob — mud and grass. I remember that I would help my grandmother once a month mixing and patching up the holes that animals and erosion made on the wall.”
Since his family struggled to put food on the table, buying toys was out of the question — so Monterroso started creating his own.
“I started to make shelters with branches and mud to play with my friends — imagining a beautiful and safe place where no one could get in to hurt us,” he says. “I made toys [and] cars out of carved wood. I would make spaceships, plates and just about any shape with mud and clay. I learned to use what materials were around to create my own imaginary toys and games, to the point that kids that had toys preferred to play with the toys I was making.”