Just in case people here have the same problem

I just wanted to say that on gentoo with xorg-x11 6.8.2-r7 the layout didn't work.

However by following the instructions on http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Modular_Xorg to upgrade to xorg-x11 7.0-r1, I got it to work....

If you do follow those instructions, don't forget to delete /usr/X11/lib/xkb before installing xorg
and then afterward create a link from /usr/X11/lib/xkb to /usr/share/X11/xkb/
This link is needed for the gnome settings daemon and for some other utilities out there....