Newbie needs help getting started with i18n

I'm using Python 2.3.4 on Gentoo Linux, and I'm about to use i18n for the
first time.  I've got a null-translation file (everything maps to itself) in
    /usr/share/locale/en_US/LC_MESSAGES/ohex.mo
but when I execute
    import gettext
    gettext.translation("ohex", languages="en_US:C").install(False)
I get an IOError 'No translation file found for domain 'ohex'

Using strace(1) to find what system calls failed, I see access
to a series of directories 'e' 'n' '_' 'U' 'S', rather than the expected
single directory "en_US", as shown below.  What am I doing
wrong?

Strace output (severely trimmed):
                                          
stat64("/usr/share/locale/e/LC_MESSAGES/ohex.mo", 0xbfffe8b0) = -1 
ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat64("/usr/share/locale/n/LC_MESSAGES/ohex.mo", 0xbfffe8b0) = -1 
ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat64("/usr/share/locale/_/LC_MESSAGES/ohex.mo", 0xbfffe8b0) = -1 
ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat64("/usr/share/locale/LC_MESSAGES/ohex.mo", 0xbfffe8b0) = -1 ENOENT 
(No such file or directory)
stat64("/usr/share/locale/U/LC_MESSAGES/ohex.mo", 0xbfffe8b0) = -1 
ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat64("/usr/share/locale/S/LC_MESSAGES/ohex.mo", 0xbfffe8b0) = -1 
ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat64("/usr/share/locale/:/LC_MESSAGES/ohex.mo", 0xbfffe8b0) = -1 
ENOENT (No such file or directory)

Help??

++kevin

-- 
Dr. Kevin O'Gorman  (805) 756-2986  mailto:[email protected]
Home Page: http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~kogorman