Tips for the hold or ground(ed) "en Afrique" ..
If you enter the hold or are held up on departure on account of one of these ludicrous harambees (and to be fair Bush does'nt close the airport, I understand the Secret Service do this based on local intelligence - although Clinton did once shut LAX down for 45 mins on the pretence of a haircut while in fact filming a wedding message for a White House aide):
1/ Have a pair of bino's handy to watch the send off - in Africa they have this habit of enormous vile hags jiggiling about in "traditional garb" - some have the incumbents face printed on their gear and enevitably one or two have it slap bang on a butt cheek or two - where it belongs !.
2/ Occassionally the band belts out quite a good verision of something - keep the door open and the windows too - not just because of the band mind you, but certain self loading stuff beyond row 6 may have been "a long time out of water" (and allergic soap).
3/ Take along a few "bored" games or a pack of cards - if you know the other crews around you could start a game of poker on 123.45
4/ Keep a good book in your flight bag or get to know your crew (yawn)
5/ Use the binos to avoid the idiots with no TCAS flying a perfect hold but using imperial and aviating in completely the opposite direction (seen it, more than once)
...MOST OF ALL:
6/ Don't be under any impression that this will change for at least the next 20 years or that any of these people give a damn about any money you or anybody else might be bringing to their country - your stupid government has probably let them steal enough of theirs already !.