First problem I ran into was:
PyArg_Parse error
which I solved by doing:
export LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/lib -lpthread"
Hm, that's really a bit odd. I'll try to have a look at this and see why we're not figuring it out automatically - the build system should be looking in /usr/local/lib already I think.
Now I am getting up to:
Making all in po
make: don't know how to make po/bongo/fr.mo. Stop
*** Error code 2
I'm not totally sure how the system produces the rules for .mo, I think we rely on system rules. Do you have gettext development files installed?