Linda Steenkamp‚ the woman who sat in a sheep cage at the back of a bakkie‚, says she chose to sit there because it was boiling ‚ she needed a lift and wanted to sit in the wind.
Steenkamp was photographed in the cage in the Eastern Cape, and the image caused a stir on social media as people speculated whether the bakkie driver was racist or she had been locked up for committing a crime.
The conspiracy theories were shot down in flames on Thursday by Steenkamp and the driver‚ Johan Erasmus‚ who independently told The Times that she was simply being given a lift and had elected to sit in the cage.
Steenkamp said she wanted a lift to a clinic in Cradock and got onto the back of the bakkie after Erasmus had visited the farm where she stays with her boyfriend.
"I climbed on the back myself. I didn't want to sit in front‚ it was too hot. I wanted to sit in the wind‚" she told The Times.
Steenkamp said she is unemployed and has been living with her boyfriend and two children on the Suurfontein farm, about 60 km outside Cradock, for two years.
"He's been coming to our farm for a long time‚," said Steenkamp when asked whether she knew Erasmus.
Asked whether there was space in the front of the bakkie‚ Erasmus said he and the lady had barely spoken and that she climbed onto the back right after the cage was loaded.
"She climbed into that thing, and I dropped her off in Cradock‚," said Erasmus.
"This cage on the back of the bakkie is a sheep cage that we use to weigh lambs. The cage is loose‚ I tie it down with the straps and then take it off and weigh lambs."
Eblockwatch's Andre Snyman posted this video to Facebook of Steenkamp explaining what happened:
