Painting Childhood (Tanzania, Zanzibar)

On the walls of Zanzibar, learning takes on color. Here, three children play in front of a hand-painted alphabet mural: a street pedagogy typical of Swahili visual education . Introduced in the 1980s to address the lack of textbooks, this method transforms the walls of madrasas, community schools, and even private homes into permanent learning supports.

The white chalk on their arms and faces is a testament to collective play, distinct from mswazi or ubwasi , a traditional local cosmetic paste for protective purposes. Their bright outfits—pink dresses, red tunics, brown or burgundy hijabs—indicate that this is outside of school time, where the official uniform remains navy blue and white.

This scene embodies a pedagogy rooted in everyday life, where knowledge is disseminated in public spaces as much as in classrooms. The murals, often erased by the salt air and then recreated, are lasting vectors of community educational transmission .