The script below is a recipe to download and deploy Python 2.7 in your home directory without dependencies (except gcc). It also uses virtualenv to deploy a virtual Python environment, then uses the included setuptools pip utility to install the numpy module.

PYVER=2.7.1
PYPATH=~/python2.7
VPYPATH=~/vpython2.7
 
mkdir -p $PYPATH  &&
wget -c http://www.python.org/ftp/python/$PYVER/Python-$PYVER.tgz  &&
echo Extracting...
 
tar xf Python-$PYVER.tgz  &&
cd Python-$PYVER/  &&
./configure --prefix=$PYPATH && make -j2 && make install  &&
cd ..
echo Python installed.
 
wget -c http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/v/virtualenv/virtualenv-1.5.1.tar.gz  &&
tar xf virtualenv-1.5.1.tar.gz  &&
cd virtualenv-1.5.1/  &&
mkdir -p $VPYPATH  &&
$PYPATH/bin/python virtualenv.py $VPYPATH  &&
echo Virtualenv created.
 
$VPYPATH/bin/pip install numpy  &&
echo Numpy installed.
 
echo Done.  Your python is: $VPYPATH/bin/python