title: How to scatter and gather a list of python of objects in mpi4py
body: <p>I have a list of 100,000 python <em>objects</em> that I would like to scatter and gather in <code>mpi4py</code>. </p>
  
  <p>When I try with 8 processors I get: <br></p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>SystemError: Negative size passed to PyBytes_FromStringAndSize</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>on the scattering. </p>
  
  <p>When I try with 64 processors I get the same error but on the gather. <br><br>
  When I try making an array of objects out of the list and use Gather and Scatter, I get an error which basically states the dtype of the array cannot be object. <br><br>
  Any way I can get this to work? Or anything else I can use other than MPI? <br>
  I'm running this on an 8-node, 64-ppn computer.</p>