Namaste and welcome to Toamua. The village of Toamua looks like little India as flags of the nation they are hosting lines up the sides of the road.

A family from the village has spent a significant amount of money to be part of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

In an interview, a member of the family Lealali Anoai said their preparations were part of helping their village with their cause in beautifying it for the upcoming CHOGM in October.

His family has spent almost $10,000 on their preparations already. It is their way of helping their village look beautiful. He said one of the things Samoa is famous for is our hospitality. 

"Our village Toamua is hosting India. Our preparations are to beautify our Tiama'a, this is where our village band name originated from the Tiamaa band," he said.

"We just want to help with the decoration for the upcoming Commonwealth meeting that we are hosting. This is also another way to tell our guests that Samoan people are very hygienic.

"Everything you see here has been by our own family to support our village's hosting preparations as well. There is no funding or help from the village or our district council for this, we are doing this with the little money that we have. We need to keep that "Beautiful Samoa" alive."

They had to bring in heavy machines to rebuild their Tiama'a. They also look forward to hosting the Indian participants if given the chance.

"I will not respond to that question on the preparations of our village but I can speak on my family's preparations. For us, it's closer to $10,000, because we had to pay for machines to build this again, this was not how it used to look.

"We had to bring in the heavy machines to carry these big rocks and assemble it this way. Not only that, but we also had to buy paint, flags, and many other things. Our flags were not bought from here, we had to get them from overseas. Our families overseas also contributed to this."

"My family would be thrilled if ever our family gets the chance to host the Indian participants. But the purpose really of all this is just to help with beautifying our country for our guests coming next month. All these are done for the glory of God not for a person or our family."