Kifurushi kilichopotea kiko hapa.

Kifurushi is a class 7 singular noun. Its plural is vifurushi in class 8.

This matters because Swahili makes other parts of the sentence agree with the noun’s class. That is why you see class-7 agreement in both kilichopotea and kiko.

In Swahili, a descriptive relative clause usually comes after the noun it describes.

So:

kifurushi kilichopotea
literally = package that was lost

English often uses a pre-noun adjective, as in the lost package, but Swahili commonly uses a relative-clause structure instead.

It can be broken down like this:

• ki- = subject agreement for class 7
• -li- = past tense
• -cho- = relative marker agreeing with class 7
• -potea = verb root meaning get lost / be lost

So kilichopotea literally means something like that which got lost or that was lost.

Because -potea is a verb in Swahili, not a basic adjective.

Swahili often describes nouns with a relative clause where English might use a single adjective. So instead of a direct equivalent of lost as an adjective, Swahili naturally says which was lost:

• kifurushi kilichopotea = the package that was lost

Yes. It refers to the earlier event of the package becoming lost.

The sentence as a whole can still describe a present situation because the main clause is:

kiko hapa = is here

So the full idea is:

the package that was lost is here now

These two verbs are related, but they are not the same:

• -potea = to get lost / be lost
• -poteza = to lose something / cause something to be lost

So:

• Kifurushi kilipotea. = The package got lost.
• Nilipoteza kifurushi. = I lost the package.

In your sentence, the package is the thing that was lost, so -potea is the correct choice.

Kiko is a locative form meaning something like it is present / it is located.

Here it means it is here.

It contains:

• ki- = agreement with the class-7 noun kifurushi
• -ko = a locative copular element used for location

So:

kiko hapa = it is here

Because ni is mainly used for identification or equation, not normal location.

For example:

• Kifurushi ni zawadi. = The package is a gift.

But for location, Swahili normally uses forms like iko, kiko, ziko, yuko, and so on:

• Kifurushi kiko hapa. = The package is here.

So kiko is the natural choice because the sentence is talking about where the package is.

Because Swahili repeats noun-class agreement across the sentence.

• Kifurushi is class 7
• ki- in kilichopotea agrees with that noun
• ki- in kiko also agrees with that noun

This kind of repeated agreement is very normal in Swahili, even though it can feel unusual to an English speaker at first.

Swahili does not have articles like a, an, or the.

So kifurushi can mean a package or the package, depending on context. In this sentence, the context usually makes the lost package is here the most natural English translation.

You would change the noun and all the agreement:

Vifurushi vilivyopotea viko hapa.

That means The lost packages are here.

Notice the agreement changes:

• kifurushi → vifurushi
• kilichopotea → vilivyopotea
• kiko → viko