build env in debian sarge

[Technomage]

ok,
I'm at a bit of a loss here.
I am in need of building some packages as a NON-ROOT user (using fakeroot, 
etc) and I can't get a build to complete because I am missing an enviroment 
variable.

the only problem is, I don't know what it is....

here's a sample output of one project:

fakeroot dpkg-buildpackage
dpkg-buildpackage: source package is po4a
dpkg-buildpackage: source version is 0.29-1
dpkg-buildpackage: source maintainer is Nicolas FRANCOIS (Nekral) 
<nicolas.francois at centraliens.net>
dpkg-buildpackage: host architecture is i386
 debian/rules clean
dh_testdir
dh_testroot
/usr/bin/perl Build clean
Can't open perl script "Build": No such file or directory
make: [clean] Error 2 (ignored)
rm -rf _build build-stamp Build
dh_clean
 dpkg-source -b po4a-0.29
dpkg-source: building po4a using existing po4a_0.29.orig.tar.gz
dpkg-source: building po4a in po4a_0.29-1.diff.gz
dpkg-source: failure: create file po4a_0.29-1.diff.gz: Permission denied
*******************************

there are a couple of items here.... 1 is the permissions issue and the other 
is the lack of the 'BUILD' perl script.

some help would be appreciated.

thanks.