The weird window is something that was very common here (Northern Ghana) 10-20 years back. You can still find these windows in houses that are very old and date back to something like 60 years ago or something. I never understood why my grandfathers would use windows like that, but they probably had good reasons(one being that they probably didn’t know they were better ways to make windows back then lol)
I’m in school right now and that’s far from home(no pun intended) but I’ll manage to get you a picture or something when I go home for the holidays:) Maybe I’ll ask my dad too for why their fathers used these windows.
There must have been a reason and one was safety I suppose. Nowadays you don't see grates on windows as there are high performance alarm systems but back then maybe this was the only way to protect your home.
Could be right. I imagine this protection must have come with some very serious ventilation and privacy issues considering.