I have a python (2.7) project containing my own packages util and operator (and so forth).

I read about relative imports, but perhaps I didn't understand. I have the following directory structure:

top-dir/
  util/__init__.py (empty)
  util/ua.py
  util/ub.py
  operator/__init__.py 
   ...

  test/test1.py

The test1.py file contains

#!/usr/bin/env python2
from __future__ import absolute_import # removing this line dosn't change anything. It's default functionality in python2.7 I guess
import numpy as np

It's fine when I execute test1.py inside the test/ folder. But when I move to the top-dir/ the import numpy wants to include my own util package:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "tests/laplace_2d_square.py", line 4, in <module>
    import numpy as np
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/numpy/__init__.py", line 137, in <module>
    import add_newdocs
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/numpy/add_newdocs.py", line 9, in <module>
    from numpy.lib import add_newdoc
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/numpy/lib/__init__.py", line 4, in <module>
    from type_check import *
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/numpy/lib/type_check.py", line 8, in <module>
    import numpy.core.numeric as _nx
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/numpy/core/__init__.py", line 45, in <module>
    from numpy.testing import Tester
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/numpy/testing/__init__.py", line 8, in <module>
    from unittest import TestCase
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/unittest/__init__.py", line 58, in <module>
    from .result import TestResult
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/unittest/result.py", line 9, in <module>
    from . import util
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/unittest/util.py", line 2, in <module>
    from collections import namedtuple, OrderedDict
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/collections.py", line 9, in <module>
    from operator import itemgetter as _itemgetter, eq as _eq
ImportError: cannot import name itemgetter

The troublesome line is either

    from . import util

or perhaps

    from operator import itemgetter as _itemgetter, eq as _eq

What can I do?