Help with i18n - output is simply mgsid

[elsigh]

Desperate for a little help troubleshooting - I've read the docs, and
have the correct file layout for i18n, with conf/locale/LANG/
LC_MESSAGES/django.po files (and their compiled brethren) - and in my
code I've got:
from django.utils.translation import gettext
followed by uses of gettext('msgid') (with differing msgids of course.
The problem is that my output is always just the 'msgid' string and
not the translated text in the po files.

Also, I'm running sans database, and it's not clear to me how I might
allow a user to change their LANG - I'd be happy using GET and POST
params, but I don't know what variables to set in my controller code.
When I try and use the automatic i18n handler code, it bombs because
it wants a db session on the server, and like I said, I'm running db-
less for loads of reasons. I've seen a few ideas about how I might set
the lang manually, but none seemed to work, so I'm asking the group.

I believe I'm using .96 version of django in case that's helpful to
anyone. Thanks!