https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=55205
--- Comment #1 from Kunal Mehta (Legoktm) legoktm.wikipedia@gmail.com --- This is not a Pywikipedia error, this is a connection error, try again later. It clearly states: "Could not open 'http://sxerks.wikia.com/api.php'. Maybe the server or your connection is down."
The line before it may be an encoding error of the network error message itself, see bug#3153555 at https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3153555&group%5C_id.... I suppose you have a non-English environment on your computer.
We have nothing to do with wikia server or your network connection.