Welcome to Marlee World

Welcome to Marlee World

There are many versions of me.

There is the version of me that the world sees most often—the advocate, the strategist, the CEO navigating policy, power, and the urgent work of housing justice.

And then there is Marlee.

Marlee is quieter, more curious.

Marlee is the part of me that wonders what else life might hold if we follow the pull of imagination, culture, and place.

Marlee World is where that part of me lives.

This space is a journal, a set of tales, and a record of a journey that is still unfolding.

Where the name Marlee comes from

The name Marlee is not accidental.

Mar comes from my middle name, Martinet, and also from my father’s name, Martin. But in Spanish, mar also means sea.

And the sea matters to this story.

Lee comes from my mother.

So Marlee carries both of them with me—the lineage of where I come from—and it also carries the sea, which feels like a compass pointing somewhere new.

The place that keeps calling me

There is a place on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica called Puerto Viejo.

It is vibrant and slow at the same time. Afro-Caribbean culture lives in the music, the food, the language, the rhythm of the streets. The sea is impossibly blue. The jungle presses close to the road. Life moves differently there.

The first time I spent real time there, something shifted in me.

Not a vacation feeling.

Not escapism.

More like a quiet voice saying:

Pay attention. Something here might belong to you.

The dream: Ndaho

Part of what this journey is about is building something I’ve begun to call Ndaho.

Ndaho is still forming, but at its heart it is a cultural and creative space—something that centers the African diaspora, storytelling, music, creativity, and community.

Puerto Viejo may become the first home for it.

Right now that dream looks like a lot of practical steps:

• Searching for land

• Learning how property works in Costa Rica

• Studying Spanish (slowly, imperfectly)

• Figuring out how one becomes an expat

• Imagining what a cultural space rooted in the diaspora could look like there
  
  

Some days it feels exciting.

Some days it feels wildly unrealistic.

Most days it feels like a question I’m still asking the universe.

The real-life complications

Dreams rarely arrive without complications.

For me, one of them is simple and deeply human:

my husband is not dreaming the same dream.

Puerto Viejo speaks to me in a way it does not speak to him.

And so part of this journey is not just geography or property or language.

It’s learning how two people who love each other can also hold different visions of where “home” might be.

Maybe the answer is compromise.

Maybe the answer is time.

Maybe the answer is something we haven’t imagined yet.

For now, we’re figuring it out.

Why I’m sharing this

This site isn’t meant to be polished.

It’s meant to be honest.

Marlee World will be a place where I document the process as it happens:

• the moments of clarity

• the doubts

• the research

• the travel

• the cultural inspirations

• the creative ideas that might eventually become Ndaho

Some of it will work. Some of it won’t. But the point is the journey.

So welcome to Marlee World

If you’re here, you’re witnessing something in motion.

A search for land.

A search for language.

A search for belonging.

And maybe, along the way, a reminder that it’s never too late to imagine a different shoreline for your life.

For now, the sea is calling.

And I’m listening.

— Marlee