Does the icon respond to the click, that is, does the program or object open? When you right-click, does the right-click menu appear?
The first thing I would check is the pointer library to make sure that it contains the "wait" image(s). You might look in the "Look and Feel" dialog for alternate iconsets for testing.
http://peppermintos.com/guide/customize/
I don't use Peppermint, but, on Debian, the icon images themselves are stored in /usr/share/icons.