COMIC PASTOR real name Prosper Ngomashi has revealed that his journey to success was not all rosy as he started out as a cattle herder in Botswana.

Speaking to reporters, he  said before working in comedy he crossed illegally to work as a security guard in South Africa where at one point he was arrested and deported to Zimbabwe without bus fare to travel from Beitbridge to Harare.

Below is what he told a news reporter:

I was a herd boy between 2002 and 2003 in Mahalapye town, Botswana, and that is when I had tried to be a cross-border trader.

The feeling of being a herd boy was not as bad, it was an experience I never had since we could hardly visit our rural home in Dande, Guruve. But I felt like a useless person looking at the life of my former schoolmates going for advanced level and their lives looking flourishing. I started to have an inferiority complex, he said.

Ngomashi, said even though he passed his Ordinary levels with 5 passes he could not proceed further since the subjects he passed could not land him a combination at the Advanced level.

I had passed my ordinary level, but it was not easy to combine the five subjects which are prescribed. I could not go for advanced level and I feel also that was the time when O’ level was regarded as a qualification by our parents, so I was done with my education.

Life as a cattle herder in Botswana was not paying off as he initially thought, so he decided to relocate to South Africa.

The monthly Comic Awards host said he jumped the border into SA where he worked for a year as a security guard.

I worked as a security guard at a local company around 2007 to 2008, Ngomashi said.

In 2008 when Zimbabwe’s economy had collapsed Ngamashi and his friends decided to go back to SA and were arrested trying to cross the border illegally.

I got arrested in Louis Trichardt after successfully escaping all the other roadblocks and we got deported after four days.

We did not have money for bus fare from Beitbridge to Harare and we ended up getting help from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), he said.

In 2010, his fortunes changed this time around he had a visa and worked at a fabric shop for 7 years where he rose from being a security guard to a sales manager.

I started working as a security guard in a fabric shop until I got promoted to stores and warehouse manager. I was promoted again to sales manager before I left in 2017, he said

Ngomashi said he started recording comic skits on his mobile phone and sharing them on social media and eventually he made it into Zimbabwe’s showbiz industry as a comedian.

I started doing skits when some mobile phones were recording quake videos.

I started filming myself with my mobile phone and sharing on social media. I became viral and suddenly now I am famous, he said.