Move a file/directory but still merge changes easily?

I've read in various FAQs that git doesn't explicitly track renames/moves, preferring to look for identical (or in some situations similar?) files. That's great, but will it cope with this situation: a friend's remote repository has a new feature (i18n) involving some new files at debian/po/*.po. I have my own fork of this project, and want to merge this feature but put the files at just po/*.po (I can do that as two commits, or whatever is necessary). I expect the remote repo will continue to receive updates to the feature, and I want to just merge/cherry-pick those commits and have them applied to the files in my new location. Can git do that, perhaps with some sort of mapping of "these files have moved over here now"? Or is it more pain than it's worth and should I just accept the slightly odd debian path in my repo?