Festive atmosphere, with a big bonfire setting the tone, prevails at this time in Ari Velouhiotis Square in Agios Dimitrios, in the context of Jamala’s favorite continental custom. The area is filled with people, and not only Epirotians, dancing to traditional songs. As part of the celebration, they give people tsipoura, bean pies and trachanas.

Jamales (singular: jamala) is the idiosyncratic neighborhood Halloween celebration that revives every year in Ioannina. In the square of each district within a circle of sand, logs and small tree trunks are placed and a fire is lit that burns until the morning of Clean Monday. Around the jamals, according to custom, a big all-night feast is set up with dancing, wine and hot bean soup. The disguised people dance around them, in double and triple rows until the early hours of the morning. The districts thus compete for which neighborhood will have the best Halloween celebration.

Every neighborhood of Ioannina and every village of the Prefecture of Ioannina has its own jamala. The most popular jamales are of Karavatia, the castle, Lakkomatas, Platanakia, Loutsa. The most popular among visitors and locals is the bonfire inside the castle, from early afternoon until late at night young men and women first dance traditional dances and later turn the area into an outdoor club.

The word Jamala comes from the corresponding Arabic word meaning camel. That is why, historically, in the folk events of the custom of Jamala, which are essentially forms of folk theater, the disguise of the camel with the jamalari as a permanent companion is always present.