Bright and early on Saturday January 30th, 2010, sixteen girls who attend Bermuda High School left Bermuda's cold for sweltering temperatures in Koh Phi Phi, Thailand, to continue the building of a community centre for the Sea Gypsy, an indigenous population.

We didn't arrive there until four days after we had left Bermuda. It was a lot of travelling for all of us, but it was all worth it in the end because of what we got out of it.

This project was started a few years ago by Mrs. Tina Nash after the tsunami disaster in 2004.

The last time BHS went was a year and a half ago, and now a completely new set of students got the chance to expose themselves to a completely different culture and lifestyle whilst helping to rebuild part of the Sea Gypsy Village which was one of the many places affected by the natural disaster.

We were at the work site for six days carrying sand bags, stone, timbers and steel reinforcing rods up to the site from the beach.

The rods then had to be straightened and made into the reinforcements for the cement girders of the second floor.

Each day everyone had a smile on her face ready to work because not only were we helping the Sea Gypsies, but we were also bonding with each other — strange how it takes a journey to the other side of the world before we really begin to value those we attend school with.

By the end of the experience everyone had become really close, but we did not just bond with people within our school group; we also forged friendships with a ten students from The Regent's School, Bangkok.

Everyone got along really well, and it was an emotional experience for some of us once we had to say farewell. Most of us are still able to keep in contact even with the time difference.

In the end everyone had a sense of accomplishment because we completed what needed to be done.

This service project was quite an experience! It was humbling to see how some people were able to get by with so little, and still be happy, while we take so much for granted.