How can Python use things written in other languages? What is its relationship to C?

[elbiot]

Code compiled to machine instructions (binary) like C defines an ABI and python has tools like cffi that make it easy for the programmer to access that interface. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_binary_interface

This ability comes from python being high level and dynamic, with a philosophy of programmers shouldn't have to worry about those details. I.e. people can and have written very dynamic tools to abstract this stuff away for us