import multiple modules with same name

[Christian Bird]

Is it possible to import multiple modules with the same name from
different locations? I'm using two different pieces of software, both
of which have a module named util.py. I know that I can modify
sys.path to fix which util gets imported when I do:

import util

I'd like to be able to do something like:

import sys
sys.path.append("/somedir1/")
import util as util1
sys.path.insert(0, "/somedir2/")
import util as util2

But it appears that once python imports a module, it will never look
for a module with the same name again. Is there any way to get around
this? I'd rather not rename either of the util modules as other
pieces of software use them (but the others never use both of them of
course) and I don't want to break them or have multiple copies of the
code in different named files. I'm appreciative of anyone's ideas.

-- Chris