It's going to be tricky for any of the core Python developers to solve this based on the current level of information---unless anyone has access to a MIPs machine and can reproduce the error, that is.  Can you find a local expert who knows C to look into the issue?  The most relevant file is probably Modules/posixmodule.c.

Things to look at:

- do the stat-related values in pyconfig.h (which is generated at configure time) look correct for your platform?  Perhaps if you attach a copy of the pyconfig.h file produced at build time that could help.

- are there any relevant warnings or errors at compile time?  E.g., is there any compiler output near the point where Modules/posixmodule.c is defined?  Can you look back at the 'make' output and find out why the 'datetime' module failed to build?

What was the output from the 'print' statement that Terry suggested you add?