At a voter education session last Monday in Soweto, it was easy to see why voters respond to Evita more than traditional voter education trainers. In the front yard of a modest three-room brick house in Meadowlands, one of the oldest townships in Soweto, Electoral Institute of South Africa trainer Ralebone Matshitse, 29, lectured a dozen members of the Ikageng (which means "build yourself" in the Twala language) Youth Group on the meaning of democracy and the importance of their vote. While Mtshitse chastised them for being uninterested in politics, they seemed so bored they were about to fall asleep.

But these young adults are not lazy or apathetic. They had just organized an impromptu two-hour variety show, including a beauty pageant for 7-year-olds and lip-synch and dance contests. In the past year, the youth group has also cleaned up a local dump, formed a neighborhood crime watch and planned an AIDS education workshop. Unlike their parents, they have no memory of the Apartheid era.

Noah Kekana, 66, a messenger for an advertising agency who has lived in the same house in Meadowlands for forty years, said he was the first in line to register to vote. He said he can't understand why his children are not interested in politics.

"Children don't think for tomorrow," he said. "They think backward. We think forward. Before, the white government didn't care about poor people. If you were black, you had nothing to say. Today you've got the right to talk about what you like and they will listen."

Lodge, a political researcher, said it's not surprising that young voters are not interested in voting.

"Politics is fairly boring," he said. "It's about putting crosses on paper. If you're going to sell it to young people, you've got to do it in a way that's more interesting to young people."

Lodge said Evita has captured the public's imagination.

"It's fun," he said. "It's made a lot of people who feel less involved more involved."

Uys said the tour was a life-changing experience.

"All of us (on the tour) have radically changed our prejudice of South Africa," he said. "Everybody talks about the bad news, but there is more good news than bad news. There are huge passions out there."

But he said he did find disillusionment with the government. Uys said people were angry that politicians ignored them for five years, only taking an interest in them right before the elections.

"People said, 'Why do I have to vote Mbeki into a job when I haven't got a job? I voted for freedom, and all I got was democracy.'"

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