Python in non-standard location erring with "No module named _sha256"

[emallove]

I'm running into the below "No modules named _sha256" issue, with a
python installed in a non-standard location.

$ python
Python 2.5.2 (r252:60911, May 20 2008, 09:46:50)
[GCC 3.3.3 (SuSE Linux)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import md5
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/ws/ompi-tools/lib/python2.5/md5.py", line 6, in <module>
    from hashlib import md5
  File "/ws/ompi-tools/lib/python2.5/hashlib.py", line 135, in
<module>
    sha224 = __get_builtin_constructor('sha224')
  File "/ws/ompi-tools/lib/python2.5/hashlib.py", line 63, in
__get_builtin_constructor
    import _sha256
ImportError: No module named _sha256

Googling around, this seems to be related to OpenSSL being in a non-
standard location? I've edited the Setup file to set $(SSL) to the non-
standard location. Now Python compiles fine, but I still get the above
error.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Ethan