He was born in Germany to a German mother and a Trinidadian father who met at a nightclub near Frankfurt, where his father was stationed as a US soldier. There were close for about a year, then his father was gone. Tonka grew up with a stepfather who loved him – and a silence that, in his teens, finally broke open. His mother told him a truth that thrust him, as he put it simply, into a search.

It took years, but Tonka found a number for his paternal grandmother who was living in New York – a woman who had no idea her grandchild existed – and she made the connections. He called his Aunt Cynthia in Trinidad and asked, carefully, whether she knew a man named Kirk. “He doesn’t really know me,” Tonka told her. “But I’m looking for him.” Aunt Cynthia’s reply was swift and certain: “Do you think Kirk is your father?”And there another door to the possibilities of Tonka’s life opened. He was 27 when he first set food on the island – arriving on Carnival Monday 2014, landing in Tobago before flying over to Trinidad, then driving to Moruga.