She walks alongside the shoreline of Port Phillip Bay, the place the skyline of Melbourne glows within the distance. She shines a flashlight on the colourful fish darting across the shallow water. And listening to the mild lapping waves, she takes a deep breath and exhales.

There within the darkness and solitude, it’s Fati’s time to replicate. And to mourn.

“I try hard to relax and be calm, but I always end up thinking about all the things that have happened to me and all the things I’ve lost,” she stated. “I see that the water is endless, like my problems are endless.”

(The New York Times shouldn’t be utilizing the final names of Fati and her teammates at their request as a result of they worry retribution from the Taliban.)

About 16 months have passed by since Fati and her teammates on the nationwide workforce risked their lives to flee Afghanistan after the Taliban took over the nation. After the Times featured Fati in an article in late summer time, she was supplied paid talking engagements, together with one alternative to talk at a regulation faculty commencement in California in 2023.

Fati, the previous goalkeeper for the Afghanistan ladies’s nationwide soccer workforce, waits for a trip in Melbourne, Australia, on April 28, 2022. Some 16 months into her new life in Australia, Fati, who was the Afghanistan ladies’s soccer workforce’s goalkeeper, can nonetheless be overwhelmed by “all the things I’ve lost.” (Gabriela Bhaska/The New York Times)

There can be an opportunity that her story will probably be become a dramatic movie after greater than a half-dozen folks confirmed curiosity in shopping for the TV and movie rights.

“Sometimes I feel, like, so strong, and I want to keep sharing my story and motivating other people,” she stated. “I’m making a difference, I hope.”

But none of that may magically heal her physique and thoughts after working for her life from the Taliban after which having no alternative however to depart her dad and mom and youngest sister behind.

Fati and most of her teammates on the nationwide soccer squad had been compelled to depart Afghanistan with out each dad and mom as a result of massive teams usually couldn’t make it previous the Taliban checkpoints and chaotic crowds on the best way to the Kabul airport and to freedom.

Fati, 19, now lives in a suburb of Melbourne along with her older brother, a youthful brother and a youthful sister, and she or he has develop into their stand-in dad and mom. Their dad and mom and 5-year-old sister, Kawsar, are again in Kabul, barely making ends meet amid the nation’s financial collapse.

Some of Fati’s teammates’ households have left Afghanistan for relative security in neighboring nations like Iran or Pakistan whereas they await Australian visas. But Fati’s household has not had such luck. Her dad and mom and Kawsar would not have passports, complicating a tough state of affairs.

Their immigration case has stalled within the system, and the potential price for Fati to safe their exit from Afghanistan by means of backdoor channels is an excessive amount of for her to pay. She and her household are Hazara, an ethnic group that’s usually discriminated in opposition to and focused by the Taliban, and the value for these households to depart the nation is within the hundreds and will be greater than twice the associated fee for non-Hazara households, she stated.

From left, Fati’s brothers, Khaliqyar and Ali Reza, and her sister Zahra ate a meal with Fati in a suburb of Melbourne on April 21, 2022. Some 16 months into her new life in Australia, Fati, who was the Afghanistan ladies’s soccer workforce’s goalkeeper, can nonetheless be overwhelmed by “all the things I’ve lost.” (Gabriela Bhaska/The New York Times)

“I try not to be negative, but if you want me to tell the truth, I am losing my hope that my family will get a visa,” she stated.

The considered by no means seeing her household once more, or ready a few years to see them, is insufferable, she stated, as a result of time already goes by so shortly. She is crushed that Kawsar is rising up with out her.

Through each day video calls, Fati has observed that her little sister has modified a lot since they final noticed one another within the melee exterior the Kabul airport. Kawsar’s hair is lengthy now, and the English that Fati taught her is slipping away. No longer does Kawsar watch Disney animated movies to be taught English and enhance her personal prospects in life the best way Fati did. Kawsar additionally has stopped going to highschool as a result of it’s simply too harmful. The Taliban have barred women and girls from enjoying sports activities and still have barred women from going to highschool previous the sixth grade.

“She’s not the same Kawsar as I knew,” Fati stated, choking up.

Fati does her greatest to assist her household in Kabul by sending them cash. And whereas as soon as she was supporting simply her dad and mom and Kawsar there, now she is supporting 9 individuals who dwell in her household’s home. In latest months, her aunt moved in along with her 5 kids.

Already, there’s not that a lot cash to go round. Fati should pay the payments for her home in a suburb of Melbourne the place she lives along with her siblings, two teammates and one teammate’s father.

Fati additionally needs to relocate into the town to save lots of herself the hourlong commute to work and soccer coaching, however the housing in Melbourne is just too costly.

Her checking account stability bottomed out, as soon as once more, a number of months in the past after her older brother, Khaliqyar, purchased a automobile. She started working two jobs to assist pay that invoice.

Fati, the previous goalkeeper for the Afghanistan ladies’s nationwide soccer workforce, warms up earlier than a sport in Melbourne, Australia, on April 24, 2022. Some 16 months into her new life in Australia, Fati, who was the Afghanistan ladies’s soccer workforce’s goalkeeper, can nonetheless be overwhelmed by “all the things I’ve lost.” (Gabriela Bhaska/The New York Times)

Her first job was within the info expertise division at a monetary providers firm that could be a sponsor for the Afghan nationwide workforce, now that the workforce performs for the Melbourne Victory skilled soccer membership in a state league in Australia. From that IT job, Fati would go straight to her second job, an in a single day shift at a pizza restaurant, making ready meals and washing dishes till 4 a.m.

The schedule was so grueling that Fati usually had complications and will hardly preserve her eyes open, and she or he started to oversleep and miss days at her workplace job. So when Khaliqyar landed a gentle job at a portray firm, she give up the pizza place.

Now Fati is ready to give attention to her soccer coaching and management actions, which embrace being a spokesperson for her nationwide workforce, a squad that’s pissed off as a result of it hasn’t been capable of play any worldwide matches.

The Afghanistan Football Federation deactivated the ladies’s nationwide workforce program when the gamers left the nation, a spokesperson there stated, and FIFA, the worldwide governing physique of the game, has ignored the workforce’s request to be reinstated.

“I’m trying not to cry about the team anymore, but it’s hard,” she stated. “I just want to turn on my Afghani mode and work hard to be a good goalkeeper and keep dreaming about playing in the World Cup someday.”

In August, the anniversaries of Fati’s leaving Kabul and arriving in Australia had been amongst her hardest days lately.

During that point, she discovered it too laborious to give attention to her English class and dropped out of the course, which she stated made her much more distraught and depressed. Several weeks later, there was an assault on an schooling heart in Kabul that killed many Hazara college students, together with considered one of her teammate Bahara’s kinfolk.

Fati, Bahara and a few of the different gamers went to the seashore that night time to seek out solace, and the ladies spent the night time wiping their tears.

“I look at the water, and I know the water is so cold, and I’m afraid that my heart is also getting cold,” Fati stated that night time.

These days, she is making use of for scholarships to a neighborhood college so she and her sister Zahra can begin lessons subsequent semester. It’s time to jump-start life, Fati stated.

When she was a youngster, she needed to be an archaeologist, and Fati nonetheless needs to see the pyramids in Egypt and go to China’s Great Wall. She additionally needs to play soccer for her nation once more.

“I’m so much afraid of time, and I think about dying, so I know I have to use every opportunity,” she stated. “What if all of my time goes by and I never see my family? What if I die without reaching my dreams?”

This article initially appeared in The New York Times.